‘Losing FA Cup semi-final was heartbreak – and it has hurt me ever since’
David Pleat is hoping his beloved Luton can keep up their renaissance in the third round next Saturday
‘Iwould have loved to have won the Cup. Of course it would have been wonderful,” says David Pleat. “But I don’t ever think of anything as a miss, because I have been fortunate, so very, very fortunate.” Now 73, still working as a consultant for Tottenham Hotspur, the former Luton Town, Spurs, Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday manager has come tantalisingly close to fulfilling his burning ambition of lifting the oldest trophy in world football. In 1987, in charge of Tottenham, he lost at the last to Coventry City. But it was his two defeats in the semi-final with Luton that remain his biggest footballing disappointments.
“The first time I lost in a semi-final was heartbreak,” he remembers of the 1985 last-four tie at Villa Park. “We were winning, controlling things and three minutes before the 90 was up, Everton equalised. It should never have been a free-kick.
“In extra time, we lost it. We had played so well. It doesn’t sink in how close you were until afterwards. And it’s hurt me ever since.”
As he sits in the press room at Oxford United, where he is about to cast his expert eye over Tottenham’s Under-21 team playing in a Checkatrade Trophy tie, Pleat is remembering the times he was within touching distance of statistical immortality.
His recall is forensic: everything, from glorious goals to refereeing errors, is remembered with technicolor flourish. And he is not afraid about shouldering blame.
“I made mistakes I look back on now and think: why? Like in 1994, the second time I was at Luton, we played Chelsea in the semi-final. And I should have played John Hartson, instead I played Kerry Dixon, and he was dreaming of still being at Chelsea. My mistake, easy to say that with hindsight. But these are the things you reflect on afterwards, the things you wish you had done differently.”
Next weekend, two of his former clubs meet in the third round, when Luton travel to Sheffield Wednesday, a game that, if there was any justice, really ought to be dubbed the David Pleat derby. It is a game that has rekindled his memory of working at both clubs. Though he is clear where his allegiance lies.
“Oh, I want Luton to win,” he says. “I’m an underdog man. I’ve worked for both the underdog and the overdog and they are very different beasts. And I always back the underdog. Except when Spurs played Coventry in 1987. I didn’t want the underdog to win that day.”
Having played for the club in the Sixties, Pleat was manager of Luton from 1978-86, getting them promoted to Division One and reaching his first FA Cup semi-final in 1985. After short spells at Tottenham and Leicester, he returned to the club between 1991 and 1995, again reaching the semi-final in 1994, before heading up to Sheffield for a two-year stint at Hillsborough.
“Those semi-finals are the high spot, they are the games when you are so close to the prize it almost hurts,” he says. “That’s why they should never be played at Wembley. That should be the pinnacle and playing a semi there – as we did in 1994 – is just watering it down. Worse, as I found to my cost, the players think they have made it. And they haven’t.”
Despite his success, throughout his time at Luton he had been faced with the age-old problem of the football manager: money. Or rather, the lack of it.
“When I signed for them from Nottingham Forest in 1964, the secretary took me to a development called Stockwood Park and said: ‘You’ve come to the right place, this is where we’re going to build a new stadium.’ They still haven’t built it. And they are still suffering the consequences.
“You could fill a page of your newspaper with a list of players they’ve had to sell over the years because the stadium is not profitable.
“Even at our peak, when we beat Manchester United 2-1 in 1985 – Mick Harford got the winner, as I recall – we could only squeeze 12,500 into Kenilworth Road.”
Despite the economics of the place, Pleat built a team good enough to reach the top flight.
“I got lucky,” is his assessment. “I found three players in a short space of time who transformed us: Harford, [David] Preece and [Steve] Foster. Every one of them became vital.
“Sure, you need to know what you’re doing as a manager. But even if you do, you have to be lucky.”
Nowhere was his embrace of luck more uninhibited than at the last game of the 1982-83 season. Required to win away at Manchester City to remain in the top flight, his Luton did just that, sending City down in their stead. It was a win that prompted Pleat, in his beige suit and colour-coordinated slip-on shoes, to tear across the Maine Road turf at the final whistle in an uninhibited gallop, a glorious expression of joy always worth the replay on YouTube.
“When people ask me about running on to the field at Man City, they don’t realise what it meant. We were under such pressure. And my wife’s father had died the day before. The emotion of those last few minutes, scoring at the last, it was like nothing I’ve experienced.”
After his two spells with Luton he moved on to pastures new in 1995. Almost from the moment he left, the club went into decline, eventually losing their League status after being docked points for financial mismanagement, referring to a previous owner of the club.
“The people who ran it stole the crown jewels, I can say that. They sold the stadium, took the money and ran. Disgraceful. But the club is on the way back now. They have an excellent manager in Nathan Jones and have every chance of getting to the Championship.” At Wednesday, too, there were issues with his employers. He went to Hillsborough from Luton hoping to benefit from a bigger budget. Instead, he found a dressing room full of fading stars, a team needing major surgery and a chairman whose name he finds hard to repeat nearly a quarter of a century on.
“Sir David Richards – hurts me to say it,” he says of the man who is the chairman of the Premier League. “I could tell you chapter and verse on him. But I shan’t. I’m not sure you could afford the legal fees. He decided in his wisdom we needed change and sacked me, said he wanted someone with charisma. Money was wasted. You could argue the club has been in demise ever since.” Throughout it all, despite the league campaigns and promotional glories, for Pleat the FA Cup remains the most emotive trophy of all, the one he wishes he could have won. He will be at Hillsborough on Saturday watching his former clubs make their next step in the competition with the keenest of interest. Let us just hope nobody ruins his day by putting him in the seat next to Sir David Richards.