THE OLD STADIUM, THE COMPACT DRESSING ROOMS, THE HOUSES AT THE MAIN GATES

. . .Luton’s Kenilworth Road is as old as they come

LUTON. - The teacups rattle on the draining board at 83 Oak Road when Gabriel Osho’s early goal goes in for Luton Town and the visceral roar from the stadium on the other side of the fence drowns out the television.

Watching Waterloo Road is not really viable when the team are playing at home in a Championship play-off against Sunderland.

Ambia Begum, who lives here, had warned it will be like this.

“It’s like a mini-earthquake when the game starts,” she says, though Tuesday night’s decibel levels seemed to be even greater than usual.

A second Luton goal goes in, sending even bigger tremors back through the kitchen, as the team take a stride back towards the Premier League.

“It is quite loud,” she says - something of an understatement.

Luton fans are by no means the only ones contributing to this soundscape at No 83. The away fans are housed in the Oak Road Stand - right at the bottom of Ms Begum’s garden - so she and her family really do know when an opposition team have a serious following.

Four of the terrace’s houses have rooms over the two Oak Road entrances to the ground, though there’s no-one in at any of them on this mother of all nights for Luton and those who are around find it hard to stick to everyday routines.

It’s fair to say the Begum household, like many other in this street, are not football obsessives.

Ms Begum knows that Luton are the Hatters and ‘play in orange’ but that’s about it.

She lists drawbacks to having this ringside seat - having to park several streets away on match nights and the bottles and cans left by fans.

Little does she know that one of the superstar footballers of the 1970s used to live next door.

When a newly-wed Malcolm Macdonald left Fulham for Luton in 1969, he was attracted by the offer of a club house and it was 85 Oak Street they gave him.

“It could be deafening when there was a home game on,” Macdonald tells Mail Sport, though he didn’t have to live with that, of course.

“I was usually playing,” he admits. “The babysitters probably had it worst.”

There was collateral damage for the Oak Road as Luton Town expanded out.

They took away half of the back gardens to increase the size of the Oak Road stand.

“The tenants objected, took the club to court and won compensation for the loss of their amenities,” says Roger Wash, club historian, who runs the Hatters Heritage website and grew up on nearby Ivy Road.

“That was a significant case.”

The club, which has never been rich, re-mortgaged the properties and eventually started selling them off in 1974, to raise cash. Few of those who now own them would say they are big fans.

The children kicking footballs around on the street outside list Arsenal and Manchester United players as their heroes.

Perhaps there might be a greater fascination if there were a British Asian star in Luton’s ranks.

They all seem to feel that the arrival of the Premier League to their street would make a difference.

Some in that prestigious league won’t welcome trips down to Kenilworth Road.

Chelsea complained about the dressing rooms when they played here in the FA Cup last season.

The poor floodlights led Eric Morecambe, when a director here, to suggest a more vibrant kit which would allow the players to pick each other out.

Hence the now legendary tangerine.

New floodlights will be part of a £10million refurb if the club do reach the top flight, even though a new stadium is planned for the 2024/25 season.

But amid the bland homogeneity of modern stadia, a ground with a difference and such a unique sense of place will be something to celebrate.

Regardless of the notion of a new noise levels on a Tuesday night like this, Ambia Begum allows herself to contemplate the idea of the Liverpool team bus rolling up at the stadium a few doors down the street. “

Everyone would be really excited about that,” she says. “Yes - that would be interesting.” – Mailonline.