Brian Who? Don’t worry... City fans will remember me
HATTERS HERO HORTON’S RETORT TO NICKNAME
BRIAN HORTON got punched in the face after captaining Luton Town to a famous victory at Manchester City that kept the Hatters up and sent the Blues down. He reckons it would be the shock of the season if current Luton boss Rob Edwards gets to emulate the dance routine that David Pleat performed on the Maine Road pitch to celebrate back in 1983. Horton, 74, was the heartbeat of the Luton team that won 1-0 on the final day of the season, thanks to Raddy Antic’s late goal. Town’s players were attacked at the final whistle by pitch-invading fans, while Horton got chinned by Dennis Tueart as he tried to console the City winger in the tunnel. When the team bus crawled through Moss Side afterwards, Pleat and his squad were forced to take refuge as a hail of missiles came crashing though the windows. “It was a bit scary,” recalled Horton, who returned to Maine Road a decade later to become City’s manager. When a journalist nicknamed him ‘Brian Who?’ at his unveiling, he responded by saying: “Don’t worry, City’s fans will remember me.” Horton was sacked after two years, but is still remembered fondly in Manchester for building a team committed to attack rather than the midfielder who helped to send them down. “We [Luton] were dragged back into the relegation fight in the last week of the season when we conceded five against Everton and all the teams around us won,” said Horton. “We took some heavy beatings that season. David Pleat never compromised and very few people thought we could go to Maine Road and win. “But when you had a team with Ricky Hill, Brian Stein, Paul Walsh and Mal Donaghy in it, you always had a
chance. Raddy got the goal, with about five minutes to go, and you could feel the atmosphere inside the ground turn nasty.
“At the final whistle, David Pleat famously danced onto the pitch in his beige suit. Then he ran straight over to me and kissed me on the cheek.
“When I got into the tunnel, I tried to shake Dennis Tueart’s hand – and he punched me!
“Dennis apologised to me later. City had said they would give him a new contract if they
stayed up, so I understood his disappointment. Football can do that to you. When we got on the team bus after the game, we were all ordered to lie on the floor. There were still thousands of City fans protesting and they started throwing all sorts at us.
“I can’t believe it’s 40 years ago – but in that time, both City and Luton have been to hell and back.”
Antic went on to manage Real
Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid before his untimely death at the age of 71 in 2020. Horton (left, in his days as City boss) made 689 appearances during a career that started at Port Vale and took him to Brighton, Luton and then Hull as player-manager. His managerial career stretched over a further 1,069 games and involved spells at Oxford, Huddersfield, Brighton,
Port Vale and Macclesfield Town as well as City. Horton still lives in the Manchester area and gets regular invitations to watch Pep Guardiola’s team at the Etihad, though he is currently fighting prostate cancer after an examination arranged by the League Managers’ Association led to the diagnosis. Happily, he is winning the fight.
Horton is looking forward to seeing two of his favourite clubs lock horns at Kenilworth Road.
Luton have drawn with Liverpool and were only beaten by a last-minute Declan Rice goal on Tuesday night in a 4-3 thriller against Arsenal.
City have hit a wall in their bid to land a fourth successive title and, after three draws, they lost at Aston Villa in midweek.
Horton said: “It would be the shock of the season if Luton win the game – but that’s the beauty of football.
“City are going to get a culture shock. I’m not sure Pep or Erling Haaland will have been to a ground that compares with Kenilworth Road, surrounded by terraced houses like it is.
“They’ll think they’re walking into someone’s front room! They can be sure Rob Edwards and his players won’t be giving them tea and biscuits!”