‘IT’S JUST GREAT TO BE BACK PLAYING’
DANNY Hylton made his name as an archetypal centre-forward, but as the years advance a new role beckons. During Luton Town’s 2-1 victory at Stoke City on Wednesday night, he played as a deep-lying No.10, his remit to pester the Potters’ veteran playmaker Joe Allen.
“We all start moving backwards, don’t we?” laughs Hylton, who turned 33 on Friday. “But no, I enjoyed it. I love running around. I love having a bit of a scrap.
“Me and Joe spent the night running round kicking each other, and it was quite a lot of fun actually! I’ve certainly got plenty of cuts and bruises to show for it.”
Does he fancy another crack when European champions Chelsea visit Kenilworth Road in the FA Cup fifth round this Wednesday?
“Chasing Joe Allen around is one thing,” he admits. “I’m not sure I could get anywhere near N’Golo Kante!”
Not that Hylton will be overly perturbed if Hatters boss Nathan Jones overlooks him for the glamour tie against Thomas Tuchel’s Blues.
Firstly, because he is the first to admit that Jones has a “fantastic” squad, boasting a level of depth and quality that has fuelled a thoroughly unexpected charge for the Championship play-offs.
But also because he is happy just to be playing football at all.
Since winning a second successive promotion to reach the Championship with Luton in 2019, the former Aldershot and Oxford forward has suffered a debilitating catalogue of injuries.
Wednesday’s victory over Stoke, in which he scored the opener, marked the first time Hylton had played 90 minutes in the league for over two years.
“It has been tough,” he admits. “It wasn’t like one big injury for two years. It was just unlucky. I ended up having three operations on my right knee, all of them for cartilage.
“You’d spend six months out, come back, then within a few weeks you’d be out for another six months.
It has been club tough. The on kicking was and I wasn’t. You about do worry left getting behind Hylton Danny
Spiral
“And you know what it’s like when that spiral starts. You pick up a little hamstring injury, then a little groin injury, then something else.
“I remember playing Bristol City a few months ago. I scored in the game, felt really good and I was thinking ‘Right, now I’m really going to kick on’. Next game, in the warm-up, I went to pass the ball and pulled my calf. It had never happened to me before in my life. You’re thinking ‘Come on, give me a break’.”
For Hylton, the hardest aspect was seeing Luton’s steady transformation from promoted hopefuls to established Championship regulars.
“The club was kicking on and I wasn’t,” he explains. “You do worry about getting left behind, and anybody who says they don’t think that way is lying.
“Not to sound arrogant at all, but I was a big part of the promotion seasons. So it was really hard to see the club doing well and not feel part of it.
“You try to stay positive, try to stay involved. But it’s hard because you don’t travel with the team and you spend a lot of days on your own.
“It’s almost like you lose a bit of confidence in yourself and, because of that, you think people are losing confidence in you. It’s a constant mental battle, and you have to focus so hard on short-term goals. “But Nathan was brilliant, you know? As a manager, he’s top drawer, but as a person he’s out of this world. He loves everyone, almost like we’re his kids, and he’d do anything for us.
Incredible
“He never stopped believing in me. He never stopped loving me. Even when I was injured and down, he’d be the first person to ring me or pull me into the office and reassure me that I was wanted. “He has this incredible knack of saying just the thing you need to hear, and that’s probably why he’s such a successful manager. What he gives out, he gets back. Every single one of our boys would run through a brick wall for him.”
Indeed, Hylton says the victory over Stoke was all the sweeter for the fact that it gave Jones the bragging rights over his former club.
“We played there last year and lost 3-0,” he says. “The gaffer was getting pelters, a lot of abuse, and it wasn’t nice
to see. So it was great that we managed to do that for him, and made sure he left the stadium feeling good about himself.”
Such is Luton’s form, with six wins from eight games putting them in the play-off positions, that everybody is feeling good at Kenilworth Road. Could one of the division’s most unfashionable sides really gatecrash the promotion party?
“It would be the most Luton thing ever if we ended up in the play-offs, wouldn’t it?” laughed Hylton, who followed up his goal at Stoke with the winner against Derby yesterday. “Because that’s what we do. We spoil the party, thrive off being an underdog.
We’d be silly not to have half an eye on it, because there are 14 games to go and it is wide open.
Freebie
“But - and I’m being totally honest here - we don’t worry about it. It’s not that we don’t believe it’s possible, but our attitude is ‘If we do, we do’.
“It sounds so boring and cliched but we literally do just take it one game at a time.”
And surprising Chelsea. Wouldn’t that also be a very Luton thing to do?
“Absolutely,” says Hylton. “And why not? It’s a freebie, isn’t it? If you lose, everyone says you’ve done brilliantly to reach that stage. If you win, it’s a fairytale.
“It’s going to be a great occasion and I’m delighted for the fans. We had a couple of big ties last year - Man United here and Chelsea away - and they didn’t get to come.
“We’ll respect them as the European champions but we’ll turn up thinking that if we do the right things, it’s a game we can win. Kenilworth Road, under the lights - it’s a hostile place for anybody to come. We’ll go at them and see where it gets us.”
For Hylton, too, there will be an added responsibility beyond tracking ‘three lungs’ Kante if he’s involved. “My son has already been on to me asking for a shirt,” he says. “He got one against Man United last year, from Harry Maguire.
“Harry was really nice actually. I said to him ‘I’m not normally one to ask but my son’s a big fan and he really likes you from England’. He gave me his shirt, his captain’s armband, asked after my son. Really lovely guy.
“My son was buzzing. He’s got it in his wardrobe and he shows it to all his mates when they come round.
“Now he wants another one so I’ll have to make sure I get close enough to someone to ask them!”
It would be the most Luton thing ever if we ended up in the play-offs. We thrive off being an underdog
Danny Hylton