Level on points and with the same goal difference Luton Town currently sit one place above Rovers in the fledgling League Division One table. The Hatters have won two and lost two of their four games whereas Rovers remain unbeaten.

Luton will be coming off an encouraging JP Trophy win over Northampton Town on Tuesday night. Veterans Don Hutchison and Paul Peschisolido hit their first goals for the club. Hutchison swept home from close range in the 12th minute after Calvin Andrew's header from a David Bell corner had been blocked on the line.

Substitute Peschisolido made it 2-0, blasting home Steve Robinson's pass from the edge of the area. Hatters' keeper Dean Brill denied Ryan Gilligan in the final moments.

Manager Kevin Blackwell was pleased to get the job done and to get some playing time into some of his squad players. "I thought we started well, should have been two or three up and then the game became a little bit too easy and we switched off a little bit," he said.

"These games are difficult both for Northampton and for Luton. Trying to get excited about an empty ground is hard so it's up to the players to get the fans going and I thought we did that early on, then maybe stepped off the pace a little bit.

"I'm pleased to get quite a few players a game and that was the exercise really.
Brko's come off tired. He missed a bit of pre-season with an injury and he finished last season injured so it was always difficult for him to get going and I'm pleased to get him a game tonight.

"Then Don Hutchison, Paul McVeigh and Calvin Andrew and Paul Peschisolido so there were quite a few who needed a run out and that's why I think it was a very good game for us.

"It's always nice to score goals and Pesch has been out with an ankle injury for the last two-and-a-half weeks. He hasn't been able to do any training whatsoever, so this was really a training session for him tonight. He took his goal very well indeed.

"I thought Jarek, the new centre half did OK. He's only a young kid but he looked strong and aggressive. People were saying: 'We need another centre half' but until I could get the right person I wasn't going to speculate on anything. I'm pleased with the boy and he's got a great attitude.

"He's a young Premier League player and with the likes of Sam Allardyce up there and Sammy Lee he's had a good grounding. And it's nice to have someone who can have the ball at their feet and play."

Looking at the background of the club, Luton Town was created by the merger of Luton Wanderers and Luton Excelsior in 1885, they were one of the founder members of the Southern League in 1894, and were the first professional football club in the South of England.

Luton Town applied for membership of the Football League in 1896, joining in 1897 but resigned from the League in 1900 to re-join the Southern League. The Southern League became Division Three after World War I and Luton remained in that division for seventeen seasons.

The team won promotion from the Second Division in 1954-55. Following a brilliant season, Luton made their only appearance in the FA Cup final in 1959 losing to Nottingham Forest. They were relegated in the 1959-60 season, falling rapidly to the Fourth Division within the next six years. Depression set in and attendances dwindled.

However, recovery began in the 1967-68 season with the Fourth Division championship. Two years later they were promoted from Division Three. This was followed by a long spell mostly in the Second Division before winning that championship in 1981-82 under David Pleat.

In the mid 1980s the club became famous for instituting an "away fan ban", following a pitch invasion and hooliganism by Millwall fans, and for the introduction of an artificial playing surface in 1985. The ban and associated membership scheme was the idea of then chairman David Evans. This led to the club being expelled from the League Cup in the 1986-87 season as they refused to relax the ban in order to allow Cardiff City fans to attend the two-legged tie.

The most successful years in the history of Luton Town F.C were the 1980s, beginning with the already-mentioned promotion to the First Division in 1982. Pleat maintained Luton's First Division status over the next four seasons before moving to Tottenham. He handed over the reins to coach John Moore, who guided Luton to a seventh-place finish before handing in his resignation and being replaced by Ray Harford.

Harford inherited an impressive Luton squad including Les Sealey, Brian Stein, Danny Wilson, Ricky Hill, David Preece, Mal Donaghy and Mick Harford. They achieved a 3-2 victory over Arsenal in the League Cup final at Wembley. The League Cup triumph, still Luton's only major trophy, would have been enough for UEFA Cup qualification; but at this time all English teams were banned from European competitions due to the Heysel Disaster.

Harford was sacked less than two years later, in January 1990, with Luton battling relegation. Jim Ryan took over from Ray Harford as Luton's manager and was sacked after 16 months in charge despite securing First Division survival again at the end of the 1990-91 season. David Pleat was then appointed manager for the second time, but Luton were relegated on the last day of the 1991-92 season and have been outside the top flight of English football ever since.

Pleat remained in charge at Luton until the summer of 1995, when he moved to Sheffield Wednesday. His successor Terry Westley was sacked in December 1995, after just six months in charge, and Westley's successor Lennie Lawrence (I wonder what he is doing now?) was unable to prevent Luton from finishing bottom of Division One and suffering relegation to Division Two, after losing top-scorer Dwight Marshall to a broken ankle in the relegation run-in.

The Hatters came close to promotion in the 1996-97, finishing the season in 3rd place. But after play-off heartache against eventually winners Crewe, the Hatters failed to build on the relative success, and soon flirted with relegation, before entering mid-table obscurity during the late 1990s. The Hatters were also forced to sell many talented players during this era, players such as Kelvin Davis, Matthew Upson, Steve Davis, Tony Thorpe, Graham Alexander and Chris Willmott.

The club was forced into administration after the failure to gain planning permission for the KohlerDome, a stadium for multi-purpose usage, and this led to many first-teamers leaving the club over the next few months. The club was pulled out of administration by director Cliff Bassett the day before the 1999-2000 season started. Lawrence kept a young, inexperienced side up successfully, despite being forced to sell youngster Gary Doherty late in the season.

Mike Watson-Challis then purchased the club in 2000, and Lawrence was sacked after four unsuccessful seasons which had seen Luton miss out on the chance to gain promotion. He was briefly replaced by Ricky Hill. Ricky was given over £500,000 to spend on players, but it was squandered, and the club plummeted to the foot of the league. Hill was dismissed in Novembers 2000, due to the dismal form the Hatters were displaying.

He was in turn replaced by another Luton legend Lil Fuccillo, who was also sacked within months after no significant improvement was made. Former Wimbledon manager Joe Kinnear took over and brought to the club Steve Howard for £50,000. However, the club was ultimately relegated to the basement division for the first time since 1968.

Kinnear got Luton promoted at the first attempt following a huge over-haul of the squad. In came players like Chris Coyne, Russell Perrett, Adrian Forbes, Carl Griffiths, Aaron Skelton and Kevin Nicholls. The club rampaged through the season, ending the last 14 games undefeated including a spectacular 12 game winning streak, ended by Macclesfield Town at Kenilworth Road. The Town finished the season as runners-up to champions Plymouth Argyle.

The team next season had to deal with the loss of talented left-siders such as Matt Taylor and Jean-Louis Valois and they finished ninth in the 2002-03 Division Two campaign. In May 2003, the club was again taken over, this time by a John Gurney led consortium.

Days afterwards, manager Kinnear and his assistant Mick Harford, considered a legend to Hatters fans were both dismissed. This sparked a protest by Luton fans, who demanded their instant re-appointment. The protest was fierce and led to the resignations of new chairman Roger Terrell and Vice-chairman Lee Power. This forced the leader behind the consortium, John Gurney, to reveal himself.

Gurney then proceeded to announce his plans for the club. These plans included building a stadium over the motorway, including a Formula 1 style race track, and changing the club's name to London Luton. Unsurprisingly, Luton fans were unimpressed, and they set up a supporters' group Trust in Luton. Gurney appointed ex-Luton striker Mike Newell as manager following a phone-vote, dubbed 'Manager Idol' by the media. The new owners were removed from power when TIL acquired shares in the club's major creditors, Hatters Holdings, and put an administrative receiver in charge.

Luton Town were among the pre-season favourites for relegation from Division Two in the 2003-04 season, but Newell surprised all the observers by taking the club close to a play-off place.

After adding the likes of Paul Underwood, Marlon Beresford and Rowan Vine to the squad, Luton were ready to start the 2004-05 campaign. The team finished the season in 1st position, claiming 98 points and scoring 87 goals along the way, with the likes of Kevin Nicholls, Ahmet Brkovic and Steve Howard all getting double figures. Youngster Curtis Davies was named the League One Player of the Year (2005), and he was one of 6 players from Luton in the PFA Team of the Year for League One, the others were Marlon Beresford, Chris Coyne, Ahmet Brkovic, Steve Howard and Kevin Nicholls.

They began 2006 in the top of half of the Championship, three points off the playoff positions but finished the season outside the play-offs in 10th place, a feat few non-Luton fans believed was possible in August.

Luton were tipped by some to make a push for promotion during 2006-07, but have ended up battling relegation instead. As February 2007 drew to a close, they were just above the relegation zone. After their defeat at fellow relegation strugglers Leeds United, the Hatters fell into the bottom 3 on March 10th 2007. Kevin Blackwell was announced as Luton's new manager on a four year deal.

Luton's relegation to League One was confirmed on April 20 in a 1-0 defeat away to Derby County, before they eventually finished 23rd in the league following Leeds United's descent into administration, resulting in a ten-point reduction.

Rovers have a long history of games against Luton Town going right back to that inaugural Division Three Season. Rovers won both those games, 2-1 at Kenilworth Road on New Years Day 1921 and 5-0 at Eastville on 29 March. In fact, despite meeting every season it wasn't until 26 September 1925 that the Hatters recorded their first victory over the Pirates, a 1-0 win in Bedfordshire at the 11th attempt.

Things have swung the other way since then. There have been 87 games between the teams and Town have won 25, Rovers 28 and 24 draws.

Probably the most notable match between the teams occurred on 13 April 1936 and it was certainly an unlucky day for Rovers. Town's Joe Payne notched up a record 10 goals that day as his team recorded a 12-0 win over the hapless Rovers. Payne later recalled that one of those goals even went in off his backside!

The last time the teams met in the League was on 19 February 2002 at Kenilworth Road when second half goals by Howard (47 mins), Coyne (65 mins) and Nicholls (77 mins, penalty) secured a 3-0 victory for the home team.

Rovers' last victory at Luton was exactly two years before. After Gray had given the home team a 1-0 lead on 13 minutes, goals by Roberts (27 and 90 mins) and Cureton (38 and 58 mins) secured a memorable 4-1 win.

Last season Rovers held the Hatters to a 1-1 draw at The Mem in a League Cup tie but went down 5-3 on penalties.

The mid-week win over Northampton will have filled the Hatters with confidence that they can overcome Rovers. However Paul Trollope's team is not lacking in self belief, remaining undefeated in the League since going down at Boston back in March.

Written by Gerry Prewett