“Luton Town will be in the Premier League next season. This is the entrance to the stadium.”
Even before the Hatters confirmed their return to the English top-flight for the first time since 1992, by beating Coventry City on penalties in the Championship play-off final, their away end was getting plenty of attention as fans contemplated the prospect of Kenilworth Road becoming a Premier League stadium.
The Oak Road entrance is squeezed into a row of terraced houses. And while Luton are now preparing to demolish and rebuild one stand this summer in a £10m redevelopment, the viral away entrance will remain untouched.
“There aren't any other access points," Luton Town chief executive Gary Sweet confirmed last month. “It is as it is. We might have a lick of paint and new signage every so often but let's embrace this.
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“It annoys me and makes me giggle when you get the social media content about an away end going through gardens. It's been like that since World War II or even before. Why is it raised now, 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**t entrance we've got. Embrace it.
“We've got thick skins and it just shows you don't necessarily need lavish surroundings to succeed. You can do it with hard work and guile, with intelligence and sensible financial management and absolute determination and commitment.
“You can do all that without having a beautiful stadium. It is beautiful though. The old girl is beautiful.”
As a result, Everton and Liverpool away supporters will indeed make their way through the viral Oak Road entrance to Kenilworth Road next season. But they’ll have to wait a little bit longer to make such a trip.
Luton will knock down their old Bobbers Stand this summer, which was turned into executive boxes in 1986, to comply with the league's broadcasting requirements. They will replace it with new facilities including a media centre, TV and data analysis studios, toilets and a canteen.
Meanwhile, they also plan to install some new seating to increase their 10,356 stadium capacity slightly, while there will also be an upgrade for the floodlights and new camera positions to meet the demands of the Premier League for their high definition broadcast rights.
And Sweet is confident the work can be completed in 12 weeks before the start of the new Premier League season in mid-August.
“If anyone can, we can,” he said. “We've got to practically rebuild a stand but we'll have gone from non-League to the Premier League so we can manage that small matter.”
However, the Hatters’ chief recruitment officer, club legend Mick Harford, has admitted that Luton might have to play their first few games of the 2023/24 season away from home as a result of the ongoing work on Kenilworth Road.
"There is a schedule of about 11-12 weeks of work that has got to be done," he told the BBC. "It might become a bit of a problem, so we will probably have to play maybe two or three games away from home at the start of the Premier League season.
"But Gary's got everything in place, we're in a good place, the work has begun so it's all systems go."
The BBC report that the Premier League are currently in discussions with Luton Town as a result.
As a result, if the Hatters are set to start the season away from home for their first two or three games, it slightly increases their chances of a trip to Everton on the opening day of the season, while also ruling out the possibility of them opening the campaign against Liverpool.
With the Reds currently completing their own £80m redevelopment of the Anfield Road stand, Liverpool have asked the Premier League if they can start the new season away from home to give them additional time, if needed, to complete the work.
"We get asked each year and we've put in a request for our first game of the season to be away from home," vice president of Stadium Operations Paul Cuttill told the ECHO last month.
"We haven't had that confirmed yet by the Premier League, I must stress. However, if it is confirmed, we're looking at around August 19 for our first home game of the new season to be played here with the Anfield Road stand open, brand new.”
As a result of that request, Everton are expected to be to be at home on the opening day of the new season. And if Luton have their own request in to start the campaign away from home, the Premier League have plenty to weigh up when it comes to drawing up next season’s fixtures.
The fixtures for the 2023/24 Premier League season, which is scheduled to get underway the weekend of August 12-13, will be released at 9am on Thursday 15 June.
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