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LUTON, England — Oak Road has become an unusual tourist attraction. Search for it on Instagram and you’ll see an array of photographs that define how so many English football clubs have been rooted in their communities for more than a century. They also illustrate the fairy-tale story of Luton Town FC, a club that’s one game away from the Premier League, just nine years after “doing a Wrexham” and winning promotion from the National League.
If Luton defeat Coventry City in the EFL Championship Play-Off Final on Saturday — it is billed as football’s £180 million game due to the financial rewards of being in the Premier League — the Hatters will have made the journey from nonleague to Premier League in less than a decade.
Over to you, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
– Watch LIVE: Luton vs. Coventry, Sat. 5/27, 11:40 a.m. ET, ESPN+
But nothing crystallises the Luton story quite like the Oak Stand at Kenilworth Road, the club’s tiny 10,356-capacity stadium, which welcomed supporters from Braintree Town and Welling United less than 10 years ago. Next season, fans from Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal could be making the same journey through turnstiles wedged between Nos. 99 and 103 Oak Road and then across a metal staircase that cuts through the back gardens of the houses on the street.
“It annoys me and makes me giggle when you get the social media content about an away end going through gardens,” Luton chief executive Gary Sweet said. “It’s been like that since World War II or even before. Why is it raised now — is it just because we might be going into the Premier League?
“Erling Haaland’s not going to walk through that entrance: he’s going to walk through the other s— entrance we’ve got. Embrace it….
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