Luton skipper doesn't want just one season in the Championship after lengthy fight to reach second tier

Town captain Sonny Bradley is determined to ensure that his first real crack at the Championship isn't ended after just one season.

The 28-year-old centre half had come through the ranks at Hull City, when the Tigers were in the second tier, but couldn't nail down a place at the KC Stadium, loaned to Harrogate Town and Swedish side IK Frej in the 2010-11 season.

Bradley was then out again the following campaign, playing for Aldershot, although did return to make his Championship debut, featuring twice for Hull at the back end of the season, suffering defeats to Coventry and Millwall.

He was then released by City, with stints at Aldershot once more, Portsmouth, Crawley and Plymouth, heading to Kenilworth Road in the summer of 2018.

With a League One winners medal under his belt last term, Bradley has played 31 times in the Championship this season, scoring twice, with that record in serious jeopardy given Town's sticky situation ahead of the coronavirus pandemic, second bottom of the table and six points from safety with nine games to go, starting up a week on Saturday.

Town chief executive Gary Sweet has spoken of the 'financial oblivion' that the club could face by dropping back to League One, but Bradley also has own personal reasons for wanting to stay up.

He said: "The spirit in our dressing room has never gone away and it won’t do.

"When it comes to figures and finances, I haven’t seen what Gary said about how much we’d save if we stayed in the Championship, but for me, it’s a no-brainer.

"I speak for myself, I've been working hard for the last nine years to get back in the Championship and prove that I am good enough to play at this level and I certainly don't want to go down now after one season.

"So individually as players, we’ve all got something to fight for, not only financially, but our Championship status.

"I’ve been fighting for years to get back here, I don’t just want one season here with the football club, I want several."

To do that., Hatters simply have to hit the ground running against Preston on Saturday, June 20, ahead of two away games when they visit Swansea City and Leeds United.

Luton then have home games with Reading, Barnsley, QPR and Blackburn, plus trips to Huddersfield and Hull, as Bradley added: "I’ve been looking at the fixtures and we’ve got some tough fixtures.

“We play a couple of teams who are fighting for promotion and we’re playing teams at the bottom as well, who are fighting just like we are.

"So we need to bring that energy to the table and we need to be better than those teams.”