Luton Watford: One nil in the Legacy Derby

Have that, you vegetable waving, statue-boarding frauds. You penalty spot scuffing modern football mercenaries. To Luton Town, the legacy club in the legacy ground with the legacy players, the spoils.

This week they finally gave us our name, the people who go. The men and women, girls and boys who create the backdrop for their content, the narrative arc for their debt-servicing, revenue stream of social unconsciousness.

Legacy fans.

If you’re new here, these two words are an achingly accurate description of how this thing of ours has moved away from its places of birth. In a game that has always thrived on the tension between the haves and the have-nots, confirmation that - to those in power - all fans are equal but some are much more equal than others, came as little surprise.

The return of our historic derby with no real name (it’s just Luton Watford alright, motorway twats) was a case in point.

Out there on the internet you find them. Lurking in the replies, the e-gaming, player avi, AFTV gif-ing children of Hertfordshire’s more recently procured Premier League customer base. They appear to have only learned of their Legacy Rivalry this year and, anyway, it’s irrelevant to them.

From what I can make out they mainly want to show you their Channel: CHECK OUT MY CHANNEL “GUYS” they say, and "announce player" every day until the net spend is visible to the naked eye from Dubai. They probably aren’t that different to the rest of us, but they’ve spent a lot of time at home, and got the superfast fibre a bit too young. In the logic of the European Super Leaguers they are the fans of the future. And they want to purchase your in-game tokens. Not go outside.

But we know that even at a European football manager supply teacher experiment like Watford - where they salivate at the prospect of their quarterly sacking by calling-on the new manager bounce: “We’re gonna bounce in a minute” they strain, like a nightmarish meth riddled rotary club coach trip to Mrs Brown’s Boys - we know that without the Legacy lot, there is nothing left.

Because while Man United’s brand lock ups might carry merchandise sales from Nigeria to Nicaragua, for the rest of us – Hatters and Hornets alike, the legacy must endure. It’s the whole point.

That’s why the sight of Saturday’s heroes tearing into their enemy with the fight of a team playing in front of a throbbing Kenilworth Road was, even in its socially distant state, a thing of startling, cathartic beauty.

What we lacked in the away game we had in allotment spattered spades this time. He got them fired up, but it quickly transpired Nathan also had them set up the right way. Eli stretched and pressed, while Kaz and Berry’s extra touches and direct breaks terrorised and tormented a vacant Watford XI, who looked confused at the sheer relentlessness of it all. They hadn’t come here for this. Where were they again?

There were stars all over the pitch, but Pelly showed once again that he’s well capable of bossing Championship influencers in the same way he once dominated conference journeymen. And Sluga had less to do than the bar staff in the Nick Owen. Not a solitary shot on target was registered against legacy Luton from the non league. The shame.

What the venture capitalists of the Super League have overlooked is that this “legacy” game with its rivalries and its pathetic, family defining grudges, has been quietly and determinedly reinventing itself over the past 15 years. Luton’s model is not rocket science, it’s a set of values forged in looking over modern football’s cliff edge and taking a different road.

Those with longer memories know that our latest redemption is part of a natural rebalancing act we’ve long performed in English football.

And we’re not the only ones. The glory of the rollercoaster. The down decades and the up. The empty stands and the full. The town on its arse, its toes and on cloud fucking nine. This is the game.

It still belongs to us and it’s worth fighting for.