'It was horrible' - Fights, tears and why some Man City fans loathe Luton

Manchester City take on Luton Town in the Premier League on Saturday and the Hatters hold a place in the nightmares of some Blues

Manchester City spend their time these days mixing with with Liverpool and Real Madrid, but for some of their fans they will never forget or forgive Luton.

Every mention of the Hatters opens up old wounds, and their promotion to the Premier League this season has made them even more impossible to ignore. While Luton are at the opposite end of the table to City now as they look to avoid relegation, back in 1983 they were responsible for sending the Blues down to the second division.

It was an inglorious end to an inglorious season for City as the problems at the club saw their 17-year run of top-flight football brought to an end with a dismal defeat at home on the final day of the season. The spell had been laden with trophies too, winning the league in 1968, the FA Cup in 1969 and then the League Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup in 1970.

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Another League Cup had followed in 1976 and City finished runners-up the following year, yet six years after that they were relegated having finished 10th the season before. A generation of Blues couldn't contemplate how things had gone so badly wrong so quickly, and what made it worse was that fans had been convincing themselves for months that the unthinkable would not happen.

It had been a far from vintage year under first John Bond and then, from February, John Benson. However, it was still in their own hands going into the final day of the season. All they needed to do was avoid defeat at Maine Road against Luton, who were two points below them in the table.

"We were massive underdogs and hadn't been in a relegation battle until the day before," said Luton skipper on the day and future City manager Brian Horton. "We lost at home to Everton on the Saturday and we were okay, then went to Old Trafford on the Monday and [manager David Pleat] put two kids with me in midfield. Moses-Wilkins-Robson. Me and two kids against those three? He said we were safe. Tuesday night every single result went against us."

City should have had home advantage at the raucous Maine Road, although fans who were used to competing for trophies were not best pleased at the slide down the table. The players got it in the neck when things weren't going well, and captain Paul Power remembered the tension in the crowd working against the team.

"The Kippax were fantastic when things were going well but I had a couple of bad years, particularly the years we were struggling against relegation," he told the Manchester Evening News. "When we played Luton, I came in for a bit of stick from the crowd but then the years we achieved anything - when we got promotion against Charlton and then the FA Cup Final in 1981 - I was voted Supporters Player of the Year so I had a mixed relationship with the Kippax.

"When things were going well, they were great. When things weren't going so well, they let you know - which they were entitled to do as playing customers - but it didn't help [us].

"I'm probably thinking of the Luton game. We played Brighton the week before and we got a result, beating them away, but we still had to draw the final game at Maine Road and it was like as long as the game went on you could feel the tension in the players but more so in the crowd.

"It was like a realisation that if they scored, there wasn't much time for us to get a goal back. You could sense the apprehension in the crowd, it transferred to the players, the players didn't play as well as we knew we could and it resulted in us losing the game. They scored right at the end and of course that left us with a nigh impossible task to get the equaliser."

The final five minutes of the match have haunted those City fans who were there for more than 30 years. Goalkeeper Alex Williams came to deal with a high ball but could only punch it out to the edge of the box, where substitute Raddy Antic lashed it back past him and into the net.

"They dropped in it. It was horrible," said Horton. "You can't play for a draw, I find it impossible because I'd never set a team up to play for a draw like teams do now when they come to City. I didn't want to do it as a player and I wouldn't as a manager.

"In the 86th minute, they're up. Raddy comes on and score the winner and everything kicks off. That's football."

Not that Horton was so measured on the day. He ran round the pitch in jubilant celebration as manager Pleat danced with delight before giving his captain a two-year contract. On his way back to the dressing rooms, Horton got even more than he bargained for when City forward Dennis Tueart decided he would take his frustrations out and soon fists were flying everywhere in what Tueart has since called "a medium-sized brawl".

Things weren't any better outside the stadium. City fans looked to attack the Luton bus as it headed out of Moss Side but one supporter was so eager he didn't see the car coming as he crossed the road. Luton physio John Sheridan actually got off the bus to treat the man for a suspected broken leg, all while being spat at and having insults hurled at him, with police warning him to get back and escape before any of the players were put in danger. They made it, and City struggled to recover - spending the next 20 years yo-yoing between divisions.

Williams, who had already put up with atrocious racism in his career as a goalkeeper, felt like people thought he was responsible for giving the goal away. It doesn't take away from the pain of the day but he views his performances two years later to help City back up as his own personal salvation.

"It was an unbelievable day, everyone went home crying," said Williams. "I'll never forget it.

"Luckily for me I carried on playing for the first team and two years later I played every league game - 42 games and 21 clean sheets - and we came up on goal difference against Charlton Athletic so in my own head I don't blame myself for the Luton goal but if anyone potentially pointed a finger I'd say two years later I had the clean sheet record and it got us up on goal difference."

Luton haven't been back to Manchester since 1999, when City were at the lowest point of their entire history and their current stadium hadn't even been built. Rob Edwards will take his players to the Etihad on Saturday hoping to inflict more nightmares on a generation of supporters that are even more used to winning.

Even if City are able to win to strengthen their position in the Premier League title race and weaken Luton's attempts to avoid relegation, there will still be plenty in the crowd unable to forget about the scars that are still there from 1983.