Pleat reveals how Luton missed out on Carsten Jancker, Stuart Pearce and Frank McAvennie
Former Town chief discusses his time in charge at Kenilworth Road
Former Luton boss David Pleat has revealed how the Hatters missed out on signing former German international striker Carsten Jancker during his time at the club.
The forward headed over to England in the early stages of his career to turn out for Town in a reserve game against Arsenal but thought better of the move, returning to his home country and signing for FC Koln. He went to join Rapid Wien on loan, where he won the Austrian Bundesliga and was also a UEFA Cup runner-up, then heading to German giants Bayern Munich for six years, winning the Bundesliga four times, the Champions League in 2001, plus the German Cup twice and League Cup four times as well.
Jancker also had stints with Udinese, FC Kaiserslautern, Shanghai Shenhua and SV Mattersburg, going on to represent his country as well, netting 10 goals in 33 internationals, featuring in the 2002 World Cup. Having signed a whole host of players who turned out to be Luton legends, including Ricky Hill, Mick Harford, Mal Donaghy and John Hartson to name just four, then discussing some of the moves that fell through, Pleat said: “There were some players we missed out on, I’ll tell you one, we had a player over called Carsten Jancker, who became a very famous centre forward for the national team.
"He came to Luton, he played at Highbury in a reserve game, he didn’t like the digs, where we asked him to stay. He wasn’t too keen on the people at Luton and he complained that he had an injury and shouldn’t have played at Arsenal. He went back to Germany, we didn’t take him. We had Stuart Pearce but we didn’t take him, three years later he signed for Coventry.
"Young (Kevin) Phillips was on trial, Wayne Turner tipped me off that a young boy from Baldock was going to play in a reserve game at Watford. I went to watch him, but I didn’t take him. I wouldn’t have taken him anyway as Glenn Roeder was already into him and he signed for Watford. Of course we missed some players and there were other players we might have tried to sign that we didn’t because we didn’t have the money or we weren’t able to for different reasons.”
It wasn’t just the Jancker and co that slipped through the net either, as Pleat remembers how Town almost managed to snap up Scottish forward Frank McAvennie, who had caught the eye for his goalscoring exploits at St Mirren. The deal couldn’t be done though, as despite being close to putting pen to paper, the striker eventually went to West Ham on the same day he had talks with the Hatters, where he formed a lethal partnership with Tony Cottee, going on to have a fine career, including two spells at Celtic, also winning five caps for his country too.
On how close Town came to bringing him in, Pleat continued: “That was an incredible story as the secretary went back to collect him the following day and he’d gone. We know now as he wrote in his book, at two o’clock he signed for West Ham at Toddington Service station. He was a terrific manager John Lyall, a lovely man, but unfortunately he did us up like a kipper that night. David Evans (Town chairman) slapped him on the head when he came in and said ‘welcome to Luton Macca’ and then we had too many people talking.
"He had his agent there, had his chairman there, I was there. John Wilkinson, the secretary was there, John Smith the chief executive was there, we had too many people and he was bemused. He was a young boy, about 22, 23 at the time, and the boy was confused. He didn’t understand the wage system at Luton, but that’s another story. I met him many years afterwards and he fondly remembered that meeting and semi-apologised. But he had a wonderful relationship with Cottee at West Ham and scored a lot of goals.”
For all the players that he missed out on though, Pleat more than made up for it by the kind of personnel he was able to attract to Kenilworth Road during both of his stints in charge, with Town becoming an established Division One side during his first stint in the dug-out. Once he returned in 1991, with the Hatters dropping back to the second tier of English football, he was quick to credit former Swansea City full back Cyril Beech, a scout for the club in Wales, for his recommendations, adding: “I’ll give you a list from Cyril, he got me (Mark) Pembridge, Ceri Hughes, John Hartson, Jason Rees, Kurt Nogan, unbelievable players.
"They came up every three or four weeks from Swansea on the train and they played trial games on Sundays. Of course Hartson made the club two and a half million when we sold him. Pembridge went on a free transfer, he ran his contract out, he went to Derby, he then came back to me at Sheffield Wednesday and then he went to Everton, he had a good career, a lovely boy Pembridge. (Paul) Telfer was a very physically fit player, (Gordon) Strachan signed him for Coventry and he went on to play for Scotland too.”