Opinion: Disillusioned fans or unfairly judgemental

Are smaller clubs of the day, such as Luton Town FC, being looked upon as “selling” clubs for bigger clubs to continuously exploit?

During my usual early morning browse into certain social media forums it came to my attention that there has been a great deal of criticism from some quarters of the Luton Town Football Club’s support base regarding the recent sale of young midfielder Cameron McGeehan to Championship side Barnsley. With accusations aimed at the Hatters Chief Executive, Gary Sweet, being hypocritical when he claimed that Luton Town were no longer a “selling” club, one has to look at both sides of the argument.

In the past, one cannot deny for many years Luton Town was a “selling” club. There are a number of good examples.

One that springs immediately to mind was in 1990, although not a Luton youth player, Roy Wegerle was a much respected goal-scorer for the Hatters when they sold him to West London club Queens Park Rangers for £1m. As I recall many fans were up in arms regarding that sale. This was a typical “selling” club sale as far as many were concerned.

Other more obvious sales in that regard were:

Matthew Jackson in 1991. A local player from Bedford, who made his way through the ranks to the first team, after only nine first team appearances, Howard Kendall signed the young defender for £600,000. My initial thoughts at the time is if Luton had held on to this talented young man for another season they could have easily doubled their asking price. But as was often the case at the time, the Hatters were continuously looked upon as a soft touch in regards to the transfer market, by the bigger clubs.

Another Matthew, this time Upson. A player who played only twelve or so minutes of first team football as a youth player in 1996. In May 1997 Arsenal paid £2m for him. What was more annoying for myself and a number of other supporters was the fact that he did not make the first team immediately, with competition from such seasoned players as Tony Adams and Steve Bould keeping him out of the first team. Surely he would have been of better use to the Hatters, like with the case of Jackson for another season or so. Some asked the question was this pure greed or just simply a touch of naivety from the board’s point of view.

With players such as McGeehan, Curtis Davies (to West Bromwich Albion), John Hartson (Arsenal) and more recently Andre Gray (Brentford), the club really had no choice as far as I am concerned. A club such as Luton Town, with those players, would be not looking after the players best interests in not allowing them to leave for a bigger and better clubs. Luton Town and other clubs like them when in a position of being approached by bigger clubs, when a player has proved himself, must allow that player to at least make his own decision on his future. The supporters quite rightly are sorry to see such players move on, they can be the difference between success and mediocrity within a season.

But the fact of the matter is, in the case of Cameron McGeehan, the board cannot be blamed for allowing the player to better his career. I for one wish Cam the very best for his future at Oakwell and beyond, the lad certainly has the potential to do well in the Championship and who knows maybe even higher, in time.