Forgive me for being a complete push-over. Forgive me for being a classic bleeding-heart liberal. Forgive me for feeling awkward and uncomfortable at the sight of others' misfortune. Forgive me for tedious persistence in looking at "the wider picture". Forgive me for droning endlessly on about the politics of lower division football clubs. Forgive me for being too damn sensible.

Above all, forgive me for not wanting Luton to go bust.

It's not that I don't hate them. I do, kind of. I hate them as much as I can hate anything that has little or no impact on my life. It's a bit like despising aardvarks or gooseberry jam - an abstract loathing that just never comes into play and that's swamped by real contempt for stuff that matters.

What is "stuff that matters"? Well, there's a simple benchmark. Big Hard Excellent Fish (yes, all right, I know) had a single out in 1990 called "Imperfect List". As the title suggests, it's an incomplete list of all the things that drag you down and crush your spirit daily, all the crap that humanity spews forth, read out over five minutes with venomous resignation. It goes from Hillsborough to Hiroshima, "red sock in a white wash" to miscarriage, Jimmy Tarbuck to Adolf Hitler, "disloyal lover" to lost keys, "AIDS inventor" to Clause 28, and on, and on. And it contains the absolute definition of hatred....

"F***ing bastard Thatcher." Three words that are so filled with spite and fury and hurt and indignation and sorrow and revenge that, how ever you felt about our former PM, they make you shudder. Now that is hatred, that is "stuff that matters".

For me, Luton are too insignificant to be the subject of such utter rage. Not even the meatheads who insist on sending me unintelligible insults via the comments form on this site will ever be able to summon up those feelings.

It's not that football isn't important enough, or that I push it aside in favour of so-called 'real' issues. Far from it - Bill Archer, David Bellotti, and Ken Richardson would be right up there with the greats in my personal "Imperfect List", and Paul Peschisolido and Sasa Curcic wouldn't be left out either. There is plenty of "stuff that matters" within football, it's just that Luton aren't it.

I like it when they lose, I don't like it when they win. That's what it comes down to, really. And that's several bus journeys away from wanting them to go out of business, particularly when I spent an unhealthily large part of my life arguing for the survival of all ninety-two league clubs. Football needs Luton, just as it needs Oxford, Portsmouth, Chester, and (gulp) Palace. Villains and heroes, as it should be.

Of course, I understand if others feel differently. I'm only trying to explain, not persuade. If you're so vociferously anti-Luton that you'd gladly nuke the place, I'm only asking a small favour - please don't think too badly of those of us who'd prefer to see them survive.

The whole point of football, although you'd be forgiven for forgetting, is that you win, lose or draw matches. That's the proper way to succeed or fail. Luton need to get through the pain of receivership so that they can push ahead with the real task in hand, namely being absolute rubbish. I hope they do so.