Video: New Hatters academy aims to break its “white bastion”

David Blakeman, who was made a patron of ASR Elites FC at the event on Thursday at Dallow Learning and Community Centre, in Dallow Road, said the club aims to have an academy open in Bury Park in September.

“At the moment the club is, I think it is fair to say, very much a white bastion and that is not a good thing commercial for us or the town. We need to put ourselves in a position where we have a cross section of Lutonians coming to the stadium and I think that has all sorts of benefits.”

He said it would mean people would feel included and the town would have an institution capable of uniting the town behind a common cause.

“We want to have an academy very shortly in Bury Park,” he added. “We aim to open in September, which will be in large part, aimed at the local population. I think there is a feeling at the moment amongst lots of young Asian footballers that the world is a white world that they can’t break through, that it is institutionally geared in that way. We want to be in the forefront of ending that.”