As seasons go, it wasn't a good one. After having ten points deducted as they entered administration in November, it was always going to be a backs against the wall job if they wanted to stay up. But it was a challenge that they failed at, and they finished bottom of the league, seventeen points away from safety.

Well if you ever wanted someone up for a fight, then Mick Harford is your man. As a player, he was not to be messed with and it was perhaps surprising that it took him so long to catch up with the Crazy Gang at Wimbledon as they seemed to compliment each other perfectly. I remember one appearance for the Dons away at Watford in the Cup where the Watford players did some attention seeking celebration after a goal, and Harford just trampled through them all.

But for all his physical prowess as a player, and the fact that he's something of a Luton legend from his time as player / coach / assistant manager / director of football / manager / tea boy, his managerial career is blemished to say the least. In fairness to him, he's been at clubs where off the field problems have made it like managing with two hands tied behind your back, but there's nothing to look at to suggest that he is management material.

His two permanent managerial jobs have yielded a total of just seven wins from over fifty games, and he's got relegated with both Rotherham and Luton. He should be safe from the boot this season, as he'll be guarded by the points deduction. But he's got much to do if he's to prove himself as a manager.

For a start, as a club, you'd have to assume that all the troubles that they've been through in the last few years have finally come to an end. They've not hit rock bottom just yet, but the end is in sight. As we've been told a million times, they have a new board in place (who are being punished for things that the previous blah blah blah blah......), and Luton fans can remain confident that they've got a board which has the football club at heart.

And on the field, they can't lose. Well they can, and probably will do many many times. But if it ends up with relegation, then what else could they have expected this season? The thirty points deduction gives them the perfect excuse for anything now. They could get relegated, whilst still remaining with a negative points tally, and they'll be able to absolve themselves of any blame at all for it, pinning all their scorn on the FA and FL.

Added on to that will be a new found unity on the terraces. It will be a season where the Luton fans will look to maintain as much dignity as they can. They'll probably sing their adoration for their club louder than at any other time in their history. The diehards are gonna love this.

And, there's always that very slim chance that the unthinkable could actually happen, and they go on one of those momentum gathering runs, and somehow get enough points to stay up, even if its at the expense of another team suffering points penalties. Should that happen, then I've no doubt it will go down as the greatest season in the club's history.

This is a tough one to call. After all, last season was about as depressing as it could get. They had the administration, and the worry about whether there'd actually be a Luton Town to follow. They had the bottom of the league finish. And arguably this season has already done its worst.

But above anything else, and their media sympathies will be forgotten about soon enough, they are a side who will be seeking out their third relegation in succession, and relegation to League Two isn't even in the same league (pardon the pub) as relegation out of the Football League. At least in League Two, you know where places like Chester and Grimsby are. Journeys to Ebbsfleet and Histon are the reason that Sat Navs were invented.

And the relegation will be the longest drawn out relegation in the history of football. The one thing which brings football fans back to their clubs every August is that hope that this could be the season. Their hope has been yanked away from them. They've got a 46 game relegation run in.

24th - Conference Calling

The lengths the Football League will go to prevent us tipping Notts County for the drop I guess. You can put whatever spin you want on Luton's season, about how a good run at the start might inspire them the way that it did to Leeds early on last year, but Leeds' "success" will only prove to give false hope to the Luton supporters.

The reality is that they'll need something in the region of eighty points if they want to survive this season, and that's the equivalent of automatic promotion form, and that's going to be just too much for them to claw back. You could argue that had there been a level playing field, where they started on zero points, then getting the eighty points for automatic promotion wouldn't have been an impossibility so survival will be achievable.

But the psychological effect of starting thirty points from safety is an absolute killer. The optimists can cross their fingers, but for so many, they'll have written the season off before its started, and despite whatever statements they can make to the press, they'll know deep down that its too big a mountain to climb and that lack of belief could be what kills them off.

Recruiting new players will be so much more difficult because of the points deduction. You can sell the idea of how the players could be heroes if they managed it, but no player worth his salt is gonna risk a relegation to the Conference.

It's simply too big a task for Luton to stay up.