Coventry City vs Luton Town result: Luton promoted to Premier League after penalty shootout win

There was an extraordinary moment at 1-1 with all but four of the 120 minutes played and all 10 substitutes across both sides on the pitch. One of them, on for just seconds, was Jonathan Panzo, once part of England’s Under-17s World Cup winning team of 2017, and on loan from Nottingham Forest. His mistake let in another, Joe Taylor, a Wales Under-21 who took the ball to run on goal and score.

The game finally seemed settled. It had felt like from the moment Hamer had equalised for Coventry after 65 minutes both had been feeling their way to a penalty shoot-out. Then after Taylor’s goal, for about 60 seconds it was all over. Yet there was also something in his celebration – a guilty tell. Referee Michael Oliver consulted his Var, Andre Marriner, and he correctly identified a handball in the moment that Taylor took possession from Panzo.

This was the only Championship game all season in which Var had been deployed and, biting his nails in the Wembley royal box, Howard Webb will have been delighted it saved his officials. The final went to penalties.

This thing that Luton do – it works for them. Whether their style could be imported from the 1980s, via Kenilworth Road, and on to Wembley was the question and in the first half there was an emphatic answer. It worked out there on the greensward pitch that has found out so many teams over the decades, and applied relentlessly, it seemed to grind Coventry down.

By the time Luton had lost Lockyer to a serious-looking injury, scored a fine goal through Clark and ran at Coventry’s defence like it was made of polystyrene, an unusual statistic was flashed up. After 26 minutes Coventry had not managed a touch in the Luton area. They were being shelled back into their own half.