LUTON Town Football Club moved to disassociate itself from any connection from the EDL yesterday after a Channel 4 documentary suggested that the right wing movement began with a demonstration involving Hatters fans.
Disgruntled supporters took to social networking sites upset that Proud and Prejudiced, aired on Monday night inferred that early EDL supporters were also fans of the club.
Hatters managing director Gary Sweet said: “We were bitterly disappointed that Channel 4 implied that the EDL grew from a handful of Luton supporters. The fact that they may (or may not) have been football supporters of any club, I feel, was completely irrelevant to the focus of the documentary. We are working very hard to ensure that Kenilworth Road is a safe haven for anyone to escape the pressures of everyday life and we’d like it to be an environment which brings people from diverse backgrounds together, not tears them apart.
“We are proudly working with local communities to build bridges and to encourage organisations to use football and our Club as a way of promoting harmony and exposing Luton as a good place to be.
“To suggest or implicate that Luton Town Football Club has, in any way, been an initiator, influencer or even an environment for the development of extremism of any kind is untrue and could seriously damage the goodwill we are attempting to build.”