Bonfire Night against Liverpool was when Andros Townsend detected change in the air at Luton Town, a spark Luis Diaz failed to extinguish with his late equaliser.
‘Nothing was said as such,’ recalls Townsend. ‘You could just feel our lads thinking these big boys were not as good as we were making out. We’d been making out we were little Luton from the Championship and these were super-heavyweights.
‘That night, the manager made the point that if we’re going down we’re going down fighting, playing the way they’d played in the Championship, high tempo with the fans behind us making it a horrible atmosphere.
‘And that was the game when everyone really started to believe we were on par with these teams, and when I started to believe, “Wow, we’re not going to break Derby’s 11-point record low like everyone was making out, we’ve got a real chance”.’
Townsend had been at Luton for less than a month and was quickly learning it was nothing like the place he had perceived from afar.
Andros Townsend reveals the feeling around Luton was markedly different after their draw with Liverpool
Though the Hatters would be pegged back in the closing stages at Kenilworth Road, the result gave the side the confidence that they have what it takes to avoid relegation
Townsend admitted he wasn’t confident in Luton’s chances of survival before arriving at the club
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‘I didn’t come up with the team so can’t speak for them but maybe some of the boys found it funny to be written off before a ball was kicked,’ he says.
‘I’ll be honest, before I watched Luton play, I had the same impression. It’s lazy punditry by people who probably haven’t watched Luton, making an opinion without doing their homework.
‘When I watched them for the first time against Wolves in September, I saw a team fighting for everything. I thought they had a hell of a chance. Ever since I came through the door, I’ve seen them grow and grow.
‘The Luton I joined and the Luton of today are two completely different clubs.’
Progress has been impressive and Townsend has helped the transformation, with his talent, experience and the positive energies of a footballer relishing a chance he thought had gone.
‘I didn’t expect to be playing in the Premier League after the summer I had and months of rejection,’ he says, reflecting on 14 months out with a serious knee injury, release from Everton and the collapse of a move to Burnley.
‘After Burnley, I went on trial in Turkey, and was calling clubs in Saudi Arabia and UAE and various countries. They were like, “Oh yeah, we love Townsend, amazing player, let’s do something” but once they did their research, saw the severity of the injury and my lack of minutes, the phone would go cold. They’d take two days to get back then say, “Sorry, we don’t have the budget for this”. That was my summer of false hope.’
But a series of positive results in the league has completely transformed the team’s mentality
The former England international feared his career was over after a move to Burnley collapsed this summer
But Townsend’s experience at the top level has proved crucial to Rob Edwards’ side since his arrival
Still only 32, Townsend suspected clubs in England had drawn the wrong conclusion that he wanted to see out his career in sunnier climes and devote time to a budding media career.
‘I had that towards the end of my Crystal Palace spell,’ he says. ‘I felt they didn’t really want to offer me a contract because I’d started doing media and they were like, “his focus isn’t there, he’s thinking about other things,”.
‘That’s not me. The first time I spoke to Rafa Benitez at Everton he said, “I know you and that’s why I’m signing you but make sure the media’s done”.
‘When you do media there’s a perception you’re winding time down on your career, and that’s not the case. I love football. I love playing, coaching, media stuff, that’s the way I am.’
Townsend had been working as a Sky Sports pundit when Rob Edwards called and, in a bizarre twist, a fortnight after sitting in a studio analysing Nottingham Forest’s draw at Palace, he was coming off the bench to make his Luton debut at Forest, having signed a three-month contract.
‘Thankfully I found a manager and a club in Luton who realised I am as hungry as ever,’ he says. ‘I’ll have an appetite for football for as long as my body will allow.’
Which leads us nicely on to the chicken feet. ‘I thought we were going to make it through without mentioning chicken feet,’ laughs Townsend, who was on BBC 5 Live’s Monday Night Club when he first revealed he was eating them for their high natural collagen content.
‘I had to get match fit because I was rusty as hell, then stay fit and contribute within three months,’ he explains. ‘I looked into my diet and recovery protocols to give myself the best chance.
‘When you get a bad injury in your 30s — I hadn’t played in the Premier League for 18 months — it’s not the knee that goes, it’s the hamstring or the quad or the groin or the calf.
The winger has optimised his diet and recovery in a bid to prolong his career into his late 30s
Townsend’s good form was rewarded with a long-term contract extension in January
‘Between my first two starts, against Liverpool and Manchester United, I spent about an hour at home. I was in every recovery machine possible to make sure I didn’t break down. I knew if I got injured I was done and I couldn’t allow that to happen.’
Townsend used cryotherapy, oxygen chambers and infrared saunas and when he signed a new long-term deal in January, he promised Luton’s chief executive Gary Sweet it would not be his last.
‘I’m going to make sure the day my contract ends, I’m better than on the day I signed it,’ he says. ‘My main focus is to keep playing at a high level. Hopefully, changes to my diet and recovery will help me play into my late 30s.’
Townsend’s career has been the classic rollercoaster ride. Let go and then reprieved by Tottenham’s academy before nine loans, starting at Yeovil, where he discovered on-field back-chat from Premier League upstarts did not go down well in League One.
‘I was a cocky teenager,’ he smiles. ‘Arguments in the youth team were fair game but to go on loan at Yeovil and mouth back to a senior pro like Lee Peltier, well he chased me down the tunnel at half-time and around the dressing room.
‘You go on loan to learn and I learned to respect the senior players more.’
Lows included a ban for gambling offences. Highs included a breakthrough at Spurs when Andre Villas-Boas switched him from the left to the right wing to accommodate Gareth Bale, and 13 England caps with a goal on debut against Montenegro.
The 32-year-old began his career at Spurs and cut his teeth in the game with multiple loan spells in the Football League
After being handed his England debut by Roy Hodgson, Townsend netted after coming on as a substitute against Montenegro
Five happy years at Crystal Palace and Goal of the Season, a 30-yard volley in a win at Manchester City in 2018-19, preceded the turmoil of injuries at Everton. So he arrived at Luton as a footballer stress-tested in the extremes of Premier League life.
‘I’m not as emotional now,’ admits Townsend. ‘If I wasn’t playing when I was younger I’d sulk and have fights. Now I ask myself what I did wrong and where I can improve. Maturity is the biggest difference.’
He names Roy Hodgson, Mauricio Pochettino and Rafa Benitez as his top three managers, although Luton boss Edwards has made an instant impression.
‘He has come up from the Championship, spent £10-15million in the summer and is going toe-to-toe with the best clubs in the world,’ says Townsend. ‘He’s not moaning about not having the players to play the way he wants. He’s brave enough to play to his philosophy and we’re thriving off him.’
The return of Tom Lockyer to the training centre has lifted the camp. Luton’s captain, who spent five days in hospital after a cardiac arrest at Bournemouth in December, has been in regularly since the day before the 4-0 win against Brighton on January 30. At half-time against Sheffield United, Lockyer was in the dressing room rallying the team.
‘An amazing presence,’ says Townsend. ‘We don’t need any more incentive to stay up, but having seen our captain put his life on the line for this football club, the least we can do for the last 15 games is do everything we can to stay in the Premier League and make him proud.
Townsend hailed Hatters captain Tom Lockyer, calling the defender an ‘amazing presence’ at the club
He insisted Rob Edwards’ side have what it takes to upset the oddsmakers and remain in the top flight
‘That way, if he chooses to come back next season he will still be a Premier League player.’
Since the draw against Liverpool, Luton have lifted themselves out of the relegation zone and fuelled confidence they will beat the drop along the way.
‘We truly believe we can do that,’ says Townsend. ‘In 14 different clubs, I’ve seen teams that did not have the right mentality, who weren’t killers, but this team has relentlessness and steeliness.
‘They’re really buzzing, they’ve found their feet and rhythm and realised the gap between the Championship and the Premier League is not so big. It’s been amazing to see a club really blossom in just a few months.
‘Now it’s about the next step. We don’t just want to stay up, we want to stay up with style and not be worrying if points deductions elsewhere are rescinded. We want to be well out of that argument.’