IT WAS PURE INSTINCT TO RUN ON ... I WAS LIKE A CRAZY KANGAROO

David Pleat on that dance, that suit and Luton’s great escape

THE brown suit was given away to a charity shop and the shoes were sold off at auction for £4,000. There is, of course, no price on the memories.

It is 35 years since David Pleat made his famous dash across the green grass of Maine Road on the final afternoon of the 1983 First Division season.

‘I was like a crazy kangaroo, wasn’t I?’ recalled Pleat with a smile.

In a relegation shoot- out at Manchester City, Pleat’s Luton Town team prevailed by a single goal scored with five minutes to go by a substitute, Yugoslavian midfielder Raddy Antic. Luton stayed up and City — who only needed a draw to survive — went down.

‘I laugh when I see managers these days showing players all these bits of paper before a sub goes on,’ added Pleat this week.

‘That day I just said, “Raddy, good luck. If you get a chance to shoot, take it...”

‘Maybe he was listening. He scored one of the most valuable goals in Luton’s history.

‘Had we gone down, we may never have come back. But we stayed in the top division for eight more years. I joke that on a man- ager’s gravestone it should say: “Just one more goal”. That’s all you pray for sometimes. Just one more. It was the difference between success and failure, survival and relegation.

‘At the end I just instinctively ran on to the field. It is a blur now and I have no idea what I was thinking about. It was the release of pent-up emotion. It was pride. That’s what I felt.

‘It was my team. I had built it and to stay up meant everything.

‘Maybe that dance and that suit is what I am remembered for, which is a bit of a shame because it eclipses the progress we made. But I am OK with it.’

TWO days before the biggest game of his burgeoning managerial career, Pleat’s father- in- law had died. ‘I was emotional and all over the place really,’ he told Sportsmail.

Already it had been a strange week for a team trying to survive at the end of their first year in the top division.

Luton were ending the season badly and had lost 5-1 at home to Everton on the penultimate Saturday, then 3-0 at Manchester United on the Monday to pitch them into a fight to the death at City. Before the serious stuff, Pleat took the curious decision to fulfil a promise to play a testimonial game at Watford on the Tuesday night.

Luton and Graham Taylor’s Watford were fierce rivals and had been promoted together from the Second Division the season before.

Pleat recalled: ‘ We got terrible stick from the Watford fans that night. They sang that we were going down, but at half- time Graham got on the microphone in the centre circle and told his fans to shut up. That was classy.

‘ We were the same age and background. We were huge rivals with different styles. He started at Lincoln six months before I did at Nuneaton.

‘I played the game because I felt I should honour the promise and in some ways it perhaps took the players’ minds off the big match ahead.’

Pleat had taken over at Luton at the age of 33 in 1978. Slowly he had assembled an attractive team of players from the bottom of the league pyramid and further down.

Striker Brian Stein had come from Edgware Town and defender Mal Donaghy from Larne in Northern Ireland, while midfielder Ricky Hill had been picked up straight from school. ‘I used to read a column in the Telegraph about budding non- League players,’ Pleat explained.

‘I got the local papers delivered from around the country and read snippets on players in the bath after training. When I spotted Stein at Edgware, I was actually there to watch another player.’

At Maine Road on May 14, 1983, City fielded a more glamorous team featuring the likes of Dennis Tueart, Asa Hartford, Ray Ranson and Kevin Bond.

‘We shouldn’t have had a chance really, but my team could play and I knew that,’ said Pleat.

‘Yes, we were underdogs and we were nervous. But as we left our hotel in Stafford, there was a cavalcade of cars with orange scarves driving up the motorway to Manchester and that was fantastic. It was like me saying to the players, “You are not alone”.

‘We had music on the bus, as usual. I remember hearing True by Spandau Ballet on the radio. Somehow the players delivered for me.’

Reports of the game suggest that City, managed by John Benson, froze. The home team registered barely a shot on target. ‘Afterwards I just ran to my great captain, Brian Horton,’ said Pleat.

‘City fans were on the pitch. It was slightly volatile, but I was just so pleased and proud of what we had done.

‘Afterwards, City chairman Peter Swales was there in his platform shoes and with his hairpiece on. He was almost in tears. He said, “I am pleased for you but this will kill us”. I said it would have been worse for us. They came back. We may not have.

‘I remember going into the City treatment room to find John. He was a lovely man and I wanted to commiserate. Anyway, Eddie Large, the comedian, was in there with him. I will always remember that. I didn’t know what to say. I was just a bit embarrassed.’

Outside Maine Road, as the Luton coach headed home, there was more drama.

‘The City fans were going crazy,’ said Pleat. ‘It was “Swales out” and “Sack the Board”. On the back row of our coach were six Manchester policemen. They were

A manager’s gravestone should say... ‘One more goal’

City chairman Peter Swales was there afterwards with his hairpiece on... he was in tears It wasn’t clever to spot Dele’s talent. I hope he stays

there in case people attacked the bus. The first mile-and-a-half was packed with people and a lady stepped in front of the bus and we knocked her over. My physio got off the bus and treated her.’ THE saviour of Luton Town was the first foreign player Pleat ever signed. In fact, the manager had never heard of Radomir Antic until he was invited to go to watch him play for Spanish side Real Zaragoza in 1980.

‘An associate of the agent Dennis Roach called me and said there was a good player at centre back at Zaragoza,’ said Pleat. ‘Jim Smith was manager of Birmingham and had been invited, but pulled out of the trip. So I went out. Anyway this player was magnificent. He came out from the back like Franz Beckenbauer, playing one-twos. He was this tall, charismatic, handsome footballer.

‘We met quietly after the game. He spoke only broken English but was very intelligent and what convinced me was that at the airport on the way home I picked up a football magazine and he was on the front cover!

‘I thought it was destiny, so I signed him. Had I ever heard of him before? Of course not.

‘I was young and very limited in my knowledge of foreign football. But Raddy was a craftsman and they loved him at Luton. He could put the ball through the eye of a needle. I tell people that he and Glenn Hoddle are the only two players I ever had who could play off either foot. Time is vital and they had it.’

Antic was to manage successfully himself in Spain. He worked at Real Madrid and Barcelona but he is best remembered for the double he won with Atletico Madrid in 1996. In 1980, however, Antic was a largely unknown 31-year-old trying to prolong his playing career.

‘He said he’d arrange his own travel from Yugoslavia to Luton,’ said Pleat, smiling. ‘He said he would come by car. I thought, “Bloody hell I have never even driven abroad and he is driving from the Balkans!” I was worried he wouldn’t find Luton.

‘He had an accident in Paris on the way and he called to say he would be a couple of days late, but I never once had to chaperone him. He found a place to live, he found friends, he dealt with the estate agent — all that stuff.

‘ The players loved him. Our problem was where to play him because we needed balance in midfield, so sometimes he would be sacrificed. He would ask me why, but never raised his voice and always wished us luck the next day if he wasn’t playing. He was a gentleman.

‘So Raddy was in and out and that was why he was on the bench at City that day.’

Pleat and his match-winner are still in touch. They text occasionally and spent hours together at the 2014 Champions League final.

‘He was mobbed by Atletico fans that day,’ said Pleat. ‘He is still a god to them. Many years later, someone asked Raddy what he had learned from Luton and from me. Apparently he said, “The importance of socialising on a Thursday night and team spirit”.

‘I would like him to have said, “The coaching was outstanding”. He didn’t say that. But he stayed for three-and-a-half seasons and we loved him.’ after he left first time round to manage Tottenham, the team he had built won the League Cup under Ray Harford.

‘Ray was a good coach and I recommended him,’ he said. ‘But there were nine of my players in that team. So, there was sadness and pride there, too.’

A second spell at Kenilworth Road coincided with the laying of an artificial pitch as English football endeavoured to move with the times.

‘It was designed to make us money, about £250,000 a year,’ he said. ‘It was about survival. What could I do? I was persuaded by commercial considerations.

‘We thought artificial pitches were ready. But 20 years on, we still don’t have them here.’

Pleat also managed Leicester and Sheffield Wednesday and served as a director of football at Tottenham.

A well-travelled and respected TV and radio pundit, Pleat is 73 now but still one of the most knowledgeable broadcast voices.

Over lunch in London, Pleat talked voraciously about a game that still consumes him. He watches endless football and now works as a recruitment consultant at Tottenham.

Most notably, Pleat was the man who recommended Dele Alli to the club after watching him regularly as a teenager for MK Dons. He has the scouting reports at home.

‘It wasn’t clever to spot Dele’s talent,’ he said modestly. ‘The clever bit was putting the money down. I don’t know him well but he is quite a straightforward lad.

‘There is no side to him. He is very clever at close quarters. Like Chris Waddle and Hoddle. I am desperate for him to do well.

‘Under my breath I find myself saying, “Go on Dele”. I hope he stays at Tottenham.’

At a time of life when many of his peers are slowing down, Pleat, a League Managers Association board member, is not.

‘I don’t play golf and football has consumed my life,’ he said. ‘If I sat in a deckchair too long I would get bored. If I’m not reading the newspaper or a football book I find it difficult. My wife wonders why I don’t cut back, maybe less driving.

‘But football is my job and in the car I have Radio 5 on. I listen to everything. All the time.’

As the Premier League’s relegation battle reaches its conclusion, the match between Swansea and Southampton has a decisive look about it. Pleat does not envy the pressure. Nor does he regret giving away that famous brown suit.

‘ The shoes were sold at an auction to raise money for the Luton academy,’ he said. ‘And that suit only came about because of my assistant David Coates.

‘ I didn’t usually wear a suit until one day he appeared in the dug-out in one.

‘I said, “You are the coach, not the manager. I will wear a suit and I want you in a tracksuit”.

‘I remember telling him that. It was strange really. He was a good coach, mind.’