Hatters legend Harford insists current Town squad reminds him of Luton's glory days in the 1980s

Luton legend Mick Harford insists the current squad assembled at Kenilworth Road reminds me of the glory days of the mid-1980s when he was running out for the Hatters himself.

Back in 1984, Harford, then at Birmingham City, was snapped up for a fee of £250,000 by former Town manager David Pleat, joining a Luton side already in the midst of establishing themselves as a top flight club.

That didn’t change during the first six years he spent in Bedfordshire, as a squad packed with some of the best players ever to wear the shirt for the club, finished ninth, seven and ninth in consecutive seasons, with their crowning glory beating Arsenal 3-2 to win the Littlewoods Cup in 1988.

Harford left for Derby County in 1990, returning for one more season in 1991, Town’s last in the top flight, although they are now the closest they have ever been to regaining that place amongst the elite when facing Coventry City in the play-off final at Wembley this weekend.

Reminiscing over his stint at Luton, and how he sees similarities between that squad and the one that represent the club today, the fans favourite said: “I do remember when I first came here, David Pleat was the manager and David Evans was the chairman.

"I met David Pleat at Junction 10 at a hotel there, he drove me to the chairman’s house which is the other side of Harpenden and he nearly killed me!

"There’s a really narrow road there called Lower Luton Road and on that way we must have hit five or six bushes.

“Pleaty’s driving wasn’t great, I think he was a bit nervous but then we got to David’s house and I’ll never forget, he (Evans) said to me, “I’ve signed all these players, it’s got nothing to do with him.”

"He signed Fozzy (Steve Foster), he signed Peter Nicholas and he signed David Preece and when I came here in the early 80s the squad was very, very good.

“We had a team of internationals with Steve Foster, Mal Donaghy, Brian Stein, Ricky Hill, Mitchell Thomas had played international football and Tim Breacker played in the youth levels so there was a really good squad when I came here.

"The squad today reminds me a lot of what we were.”

Elaborating on just how the two squads mirror each other, Harford, who since hanging up his boots, has been assistant manager, manager, and then interim manager of the Hatters as well, helping Town win promotion to Division Two in 2002 under Joe Kinnear, then lift the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy in 2009, plus reach the Championship in 2019, continued: “It’s got spirit, togetherness, camaraderie, a desire and a passion to win.

"A hard-working team, players who get on and just a real, real good, diligent group who have built a culture at the football club.

“When we were here we had a real good spirit and we managed our dressing room ourselves.

"Fozzy was our leader, a great captain and I think that is similar now and at the moment with Sonny (Bradley) and Pottsy (Dan Potts) leading the way, Tom Lockyer is a good leader in there and self-managing the dressing room.

“I can only speak whilst I was here at the football club and the times I’ve been here under Joe Kinnear we always had a good spirit and camaraderie when the likes of Kevin Nicholls was here, Matthew Spring, to name just a few players.

"So whenever I’ve been here we’ve always had a good spirit and a good camaraderie and I think, for me, that’s the basis of a really good team.”

Harford himself is heavily responsible for such a squad being created too, following his return to the club in 2016 as chief recruitment officer.

Although he has been shifted around under various managers, he is now back in the role he enjoys the most, regularly out and about looking for players he believes can improve the Hatters, helping them become a force to be reckoned with in the Championship.

On just how that has happened, he said: “We try and sign good people, good human beings.

"We try and create a good culture at the football club, we try and look to have an environment where people can thrive, people can improve, people can become better.

"And not just better footballers, better people and I think that’s played a massive part in our development in the last five or six years.

“It gives us pride, we’re very proud of where we are and proud of what we’ve done in terms of where we are with our budgets.

“We believe in our processes and what we do at the football club.

"It is all headed up by Gary Sweet our CEO and myself, Phil Chapple and the recruitment team, we feel proud of what we’ve achieved over the last few years.

"It is a magnificent achievement from a really collective group.”

Town’s recruitment this term in particular has been exceptional, breaking their transfer record to bring in Carlton Morris from Barnsley, the forward paying back a hefty chunk of that fee by becoming the first player to score 20 goals in the second tier for the Hatters in over 40 years.

Cauley Woodrow and Ethan Horvath have also come in, while the January transfer window saw Marvelous Nakamba and Cody Drameh join on loan from Aston Villa and Leeds United respectively, the pair playing huge roles in Luton’s push for Premier League football.

On just how the club gets it right more often than not, Harford continued: “I think we’re very disciplined, I really think that is the biggest reason why we have recruited well.

"We all make mistakes, we all get a few players wrong but generally I think we’ve recruited really well, obviously you can see that by the results on the pitch.

"We just try and recruit good people, good men.

"We do our due diligence on players, not just about their footballing ability but what they’re like off the pitch – are they good people?

"In my opinion and in the last two managers we’ve had in Nathan (Jones) and with Rob (Edwards), I think players have come into the club and they’ve actually improved with the coaching and the setup, absolutely.”

When approaching a new player too, Harford believes that the manner in which Luton are projected to any new arrival is a very persuasive one too, adding: “Gary is very good at selling the club to incoming players, the history of it, where we are, where we are going.

"We try and give them the story and I know the past manager and the new manager will sit down with the player for two to three hours and give them a real in-depth insight of how he wants to make them better, where he fits into the team, where he fits into the community, because this is a real community club, and we all adhere to working with the community.

"When the players have a one-to-one with Gary and have a one-to-one with managers in terms of where we see them in the future and where we see them now and where they can get to, that is a big part of it.”