Kenilworth Road was Harry’s House on Sunday.
When team news dropped an hour before kick-off of Luton Town’s Premier League home match against Manchester United, there was a name not on either squad list that was being discussed incessantly.
Harry Styles, the three-time Grammy award-winning singer known the world over, was all anyone was talking about.
But was he actually in town? At first, it felt mythical that the former One Direction singer was at Kenilworth Road. In a cramped media room, bunkered beneath the main stand in an ageing and mazy setting, nobody knew whether to believe it.
Club staff seemed surprised by the news that a guest of Styles’ stature was within the breeze-block walls of the Premier League’s smallest-ever ground, which has been Luton’s home since 1905.
Matchday face-painters Lauren Saunders and Sarah Chamberlain felt “completely starstruck” when they spotted Styles on the pitch. The pair go around dabbing glitter and painting team letters onto the faces of fans before games. Their work would not look out of place at one of Styles’ global arena tours.
Saunders says nobody of Styles’ celebrity magnitude has ever visited what locals call “the Kenny”.
Face-painters Sarah Chamberlain, left, and Lauren Saunders (Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)
After taking in the view from the pitch, a moment usually reserved for players, managers and backroom staff, Styles then climbed the gantry steps. A young steward called Shainika will surely rue that she was not yet in position at the time the pop star passed through. But Adrian, a member of the catering team, did meet Styles. He was tasked with offering him a bowl of chicken and chips, which Adrian says he politely declined.
When Styles reached the top of the stairs, he would have been able to take in the bizarre view of nearby residents’ back gardens below him before reaching Sky Sports’ studio to the right.
Kenilworth Road is embedded within a diverse community predominantly made up of families of south Asian heritage. The Oak Road Stand, where away fans are seated is famous for being attached to a street of terraced houses. To gain entry to that area of the stadium, you walk into an archway carved out between, and under, homes.
Styles, though, did not make his entrance this way. He came in through the main entrance, up at the top of the street. A small hallway there leads to dressing rooms and executive lounges. It was footage of Styles captured here alongside his Sky Sports studio tour which the broadcaster aired before the game to confirm his presence.
The view from Kenilworth Road en route to the broadcast studio (Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)
“Harry Styles is actually here? We thought you were lying to us,” Emily Riley, who married into supporting Luton, says to her husband Daniel as they reach their seats. “I can’t believe he’s actually here.”
“If we win, I hope he doesn’t steal our thunder,” Klea Riley, who is married to James, Daniel’s brother, playfully warns.
Most fans are either starstruck or baffled, but not everyone is impressed or even cares. One steward approached by The Athletic shrugs and pulls a confused look at the mention of the singer, who also appeared in 2017’s Second World War movie Dunkirk.
When cheers break out near the family section of the Kenilworth Stand, fans are up on tiptoes, like meerkats, to gain a view. It turns out to be a warm and raucous welcome directed at Luton’s club captain Tom Lockyer, not the singer.
The Wales defender has not played since collapsing on the pitch in a game at Bournemouth in December. After going into cardiac arrest on the pitch, Lockyer was unresponsive for over two minutes before medical staff were able to resuscitate him. This was his third time back at the stadium as he continues his recovery following heart surgery.
Now fitted with a pacemaker, Lockyer played a starring role of a different kind by appearing as a panellist during Sky Sports’ broadcast. This meant he was in the studio when Styles dropped by ahead of his first Luton game.
Styles was not the only one making the trip for the first time, either.
Three Luton fans from Fort Worth, Texas, had flown in from the U.S. especially for the United game. Donald Wright, Randy Lott and Russ Ransom had been eager to start supporting a Premier League team and settled on Luton, less than an hour’s drive away from north London, where Styles resides, after the team’s nerve-shredding Championship play-off final win last May.
Donald, Randy and Russ came from Texas to watch Luton (Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)
Luton defeated Coventry City and toppled all of the odds when they triumphed in an intense penalty shootout at Wembley (a venue Styles himself has headlined on multiple occasions).
Lockyer had collapsed on the pitch for the first time early in that game and was taken to hospital as the final played out. Victory that day earned Luton a return to the top flight, a level they had not played in since 1992, two months before it split from the EFL and the First Division was replaced by the Premier League.
After four promotions in a decade, Luton are on a shoestring budget in comparison to the Goliaths of the division. Their careful spending is deep-rooted in almost going extinct. In 2008, they were saved from administration by a consortium led by wealthy fans who bought the club.
It was not easy to follow the yellow brick road laid out in front of them but in the past decade, Luton have made it from non-League to the Premier League.
Without this unexpected rise, it is unlikely Styles would be here. Without earning Premier League status, Luton would not be playing host to Manchester United, the team his dad Desmond supports and who he grew up supporting in Holmes Chapel, a town a short drive south of Manchester.
Harry Styles performs on NBC’s Today Show in 2022 (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
Perhaps, then, it is more unusual for fans from Texas to be in Luton, a rugged working-class English town once famed for its hat-making industry.
“Luton folks are great. It has been very friendly and inviting,” Wright says. The trio of Texans, wearing custom-made T-shirts, spotted Styles on television from a bar near to the ground. They were sitting in the same stand as Styles, who found himself next to legendary former Luton player and manager Mick Harford, who casually offered him a Trebor Mint moments before kick-off.
To his right sat Rob Stringer, a Luton director. It was Stringer, also chief executive of Styles’ record label Sony Music Entertainment, who invited him and accompanied him to the game.
The duo we never knew we needed – Harry Styles and Mick Harford 🤝 pic.twitter.com/VKfDrmuYXF
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) February 18, 2024
Luton provided two members of their security staff to walk around with Styles. Harford kept pointing at various players and looked to be giving Styles a running commentary. At half-time, with United in a 2-1 lead, everyone in the directors’ box rose to allow Styles and his row into the lounge first.
One Luton fan, Kate, was celebrating her birthday and approached Styles for a selfie. She says he was inundated with photo requests but remained polite and patient.
It was always going to be a surreal day to have players with the profiles of England international Marcus Rashford and French World Cup winner Raphael Varane playing in Luton. But with Rob Edwards’ side now more than halfway through their fight for survival season, hosting Champions League winners such as Varane and team-mate Casemiro has become normalised. Yet having one of the world’s most famous pop stars visit was arguably a more surreal reminder of the world’s most-watched league’s pulling power.
“I like some (of his) songs but don’t ask me to sing one,” Luton goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski said moments before Styles himself exited the stadium.
Like many, Kaminski recognises the power of the Premier League and what it continues to bring to Luton.
No wonder they are so keen to stay within its riches.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
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