LUTON TOWN 3 CITY 1
Littlewoods Cup 4th Round
29th November 1988
Attendance 10,178
Scorers
City White(9)
Luton Oldfield(16), Wegerle(21 & 86)
Ref D Hedges
City Dibble, Seagraves, Gleghorn, Gayle, Scott, Redmond, White, Moulden, Morley, McNab, Biggins – subs J Beckford(79), Taggart(unused)
FROM THE PRESS BOX
PETER GARDNER WRITING IN THE MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS 30TH NOVEMBER 1988
Luton’s plastic pitch rather than their slightly inferior players hastened the Littlewoods Cup departure of Manchester City.
Manager Mel Machin’s scathing dismissal of artificial surfaces was justified. Football and the fans are outright losers when the game is played in such an unreal atmosphere as Kenilworth Road.
Fortunately the Football League retain enough sanity to force the Hatters to admit visiting fans for cup-ties and City’s near 3,000 strong contingent made it a better place to be than it normally is, last night.
Playing on such a pitch is a decided advantage, particularly to front players.
This was the significant difference between the sides in a fourth round tie which the Blues deserved to have at least drawn, to force a replay in real surroundings.
Mick Harford, Roy Wegerle and David Oldfield plus Steve Foster at the back were the men who blunted the Blues’ hopes of a second successive. quarter-final appearance in this competition.
Yet the stark statistic of the game is that neither goalkeeper had a serious shot to save, with the outcome a far from satisfying soccer spectacle.
City, as they had done against Oxford at the weekend, often out-played the opposition for long periods, especially in the second half.
But, as coach John Deehan observed: “No matter how hard you try, there is no way you can seriously alter things tactically on these type of pitches.”
Thus City never really looked like making it another grandstand finish, as they trailed after taking the lead with a David White stunner.
But the Blues were ultimately to pay the penalty for disciplinary indiscretions that robbed them of the services of key left-back Andy Hinchcliffe.
It was from this area that Luton struck twice in six minutes. With Wegerle setting up the first for Oldfield, the striker Machin tried to sign, and then scoring the second himself.
Luton had three goals inside four second-half minutes disallowed for offside, before Wegerle wrapped up the tie.
Well though Gleghorn performed, he is no orthodox defender, and this proved City’s Achilles heel.
Brian Gayle won a pair of brandy glasses as man of the match, plus a couple of stitches in a gashed lip.