Ex-Hatter ​James happy to lose his claim to fame as Luton Town's last top flight goalscorer

​Luton’s players will step out at the Amex Stadium this weekend with the ambition of opening the club’s Premier League account against Brighton & Hove Albion and in doing so, become the first person to score for the Hatters in a top flight game for over 30 years.

​The previous time Town found the net was way back on May 2, 1992, with that now rather dubious honour falling to Julian James.

With 18 minutes gone of a do-or-die contest against already relegated Notts County, a long throw fell kindly to the full back inside the box and he volleyed into the bottom corner on his less favoured left foot to put the Hatters in front.

Needing to win to stay up, the omens were good for Luton who had done so famously on the final day three times in the previous decade, beating Manchester City and Derby County twice, those victories over the Rams coming in the previous two seasons.

However, this time it was one step too far, as Rob Matthews levelled on 34 minutes and then the forward, who joined Town the following campaign, found the net with 20 to go, ensuring Luton missed out on the first ever Premier League season.

Discussing the goal, James said: “It was a bit of a left foot scuff, which is not too bad really.

"You've got to swing it to have a go, so I’ll take that, it’s not the claim to fame you want though!

“What I remember about that game was that we went in there with a bit of hope, but in fairness I think we lost the midfield.

“Although we competed, we weren't really at it. (Neil) Warnock was the manager of Notts County, so we huffed and puffed a little bit, got our noses in front and just failed to hold on to the lead.

“Second half we just weren’t at the races at all I didn’t think, so that was a bit of a shock really, quite upsetting and it wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

Town had been banking on using the experience from the previous victories over Derby, particularly the 3-2 success at the Baseball Ground in May 1990 that James had been part of, plus a 2-0 triumph at Kenilworth Road 12 months later, when Luton legend Mick Harford put through his own net.

Remembering those days, he continued: “That was something special really for any Luton fan.

“The odds really were stacked against us and Breacker’s goal was just a freak, absolute freak.

"Tim never scored a goal in his life, never had a shot, when Preecey (David Preece) was stood next to him and he ran up, I thought what's he doing? Then what? Goal!

“It just kept going didn’t it and Kingsley (Black) scored a couple of goals as well.

“The next one, Mick was playing, so you’d have to ask him if he was putting himself about in that game.”

Unfortunately, dropping out of the top flight, there was to be no instant return, Town finishing in the lower reaches of the second tier, in what was now called Division One, relegated out of that league again in 1996.

It wasn’t a good time for the Hatters or James either, as he said: “We dropped out of that league quite quickly and then we dropped out of the next one quite quickly.

“I got Players’ Player, so you can't be that bad, but Terry Westley took over (in 1995) and the club's philosophy changed.

“He wanted to go wingbacks, I liked Terry, but from day one he pulled me out of the team and we struggled.

“I’m not bigging myself up, but sometimes you've got to look at your squad and go ‘all right, he’ll put his foot in, he won't, we’ll use him, we won't use him.’

“He brought in Jonny Vilstrup who was supposed to be the hardest shot in Danish football and I didn’t even see him have a shot all the time he was at Luton.

“He brought in another guy Vidar Riseth as a centre forward, and after about six, seven months, he then signs for Celtic and ends up playing centre back.

“The good thing was he bought Graham Alexander, he was great for Luton, a good lad and Steve Davis, Steve was a solid, good footballer as well.

“We struggled the rest of the season and I played a bit part in the team, we huffed and puffed a little bit and went down.

“If we went 4-4-2, with some of the players he added, 100 percent we’d have stayed up that year, in my opinion, but they made a couple of errors at the top of the management chain and I’m quite bitter about that as it didn't quite pan out that year.”

Luton almost did make their back into Division One once more during the 1996-97 campaign, finishing in third place and then going up against Crewe Alexandra in the play-offs.

Losing 2-1 at Gresty Road, they then led 2-0 back at home thanks to a David Oldfield double, but couldn’t hold on, drawing 2-2 to go out 4-3 on aggregate.

To make matters worse, James was sent off in the first leg, ruling him out of the second match, as he added: “We had a quite a decent run, we were up the top all year, and then Tony Thorpe had a year that he’s probably never ever had before or after.

“He was scoring goals for fun and then we just suffered two or three games before the play-offs and I probably let the team down that day by getting sent off.

“I've watched that back, we should have had 2-0, 3-0 up in that game before I even got booked, that’s not an excuse for me though.

“My dad came up that day and he absolutely ripped into me, in front of everyone, and I thought I didn’t really need this, but fair enough, he’s got a point.

“So I took a bit of stick for that, but we still had the chance to level it up in the second game.

"Unfortunately that didn’t happen and the rest is history really, Luton just tailed off.”

It got even worse for the Hatters with relegation to the Conference back in 2009, spending five long years in non-league, before being led back to Football League by John Still.

Since then the upward curve has been remarkable, now back in the top flight once more, as James added: “I've not been around Luton for a few years, but they’re a galvanised group aren’t they.

"Looking at the football the last couple of years, the manager has come from Watford, it looked from the outside that he galvanised the group.

"The bunch of lads want to push themselves, want to get the best from themselves and each other, get on well, it doesn’t seem to be there’s many, if any, egos, and that’s a combination of everything that got Luton through.

"You looked at some of the other teams in the division, three or four months before the end of the season, you probably couldn’t quite see Luton getting up there really.

"So it’s absolutely fantastic, 10 out of 10 for that and all the staff for the hard work.”