MICK HARFORD was so impressed with an 18-year-old James Justin, he thought Luton had a future Gary Neville on their hands.
The former Hatters boss — who is now the club’s recruitment chief — is delighted to see Gareth Southgate call the Leicester star up for England.
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Harford, 63, attended every match of Luton Under-18s’ run to the FA Youth Cup quarter-final in 2016 and was wowed by local lad Justin.
He said: “James had been at our club since he was seven or eight and was one of our academy’s youngest kids.
“When I returned to the club with Nathan Jones as manager I watched him a lot.
“He played right-back but he’s versatile because he can also play central midfield and left-back.
“I’ll never forget the Blackburn game, which Luton unfortunately lost in the quarters having deserved to win.
“James reminded me of Gary Neville and I thought, ‘This kid has got a bright future’ and now he has got his England call-up.
“It was a big thing to say but he had that way about him.
“He was very calming — the way he passed the ball into midfield, the weight of the pass. He just caught the eye.
“I am so pleased for him and his lovely family, who brought him up the right way.”
Harford first met Justin when he was 11 while on an open-top bus parade through Luton to celebrate the club’s EFL Trophy triumph in 2009.
The youngster and his youth team-mates were invited by Harford as a reward for them winning a tournament.
Justin, 24, said: “We’d won a youth tournament in Switzerland, where we beat Bayern Munich in the final. At Wembley, we got invited to walk around the pitch at half-time.
“It was unbelievable because there were 30,000 Luton fans there.”
The joy was short-lived as the club were relegated into non-league shortly after because of a whopping 30-point deduction.
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And they lost their professional academy status and funding due to dropping out of the EFL, losing a lot of their young talent.
But the club kept the academy going and Justin decided to stay.
Luton won promotion back to the EFL in 2014 and Justin was given his first-team debut by boss Jones in League Two, in a 4-1 win over Exeter in May 2016.
Justin said: “I was a second-year scholar and had started training with the first team and Nathan gave me and a few lads our debuts off the bench.
“At the start of the following season I got my first start in the League Cup against Aston Villa, live on TV. We won that, it was an unbelievable feeling.”
After promotion to League One, Jones left for Stoke and Harford took over and won promotion to the Championship.
‘NOTHING FAZES JJ’
Harford recalled: “He’s an incredible athlete. He can get up and down, 90 minutes, not a problem.
“He was humble, low maintenance and JJ was the first name on the teamsheet.”
Justin left the Hatters in June 2019 and joined Leicester in an £8m deal.
Harford has been impressed with his development and how he has battled back from a year out with a serious knee injury.
He added: “He had to wait his turn. But he’s got his name on the teamsheet and has taken the Premier League in his stride.
“Nothing fazes JJ. He would’ve got an England call-up much earlier had it not been for the injury.
“But he has got it now and everyone at Luton Town is incredibly proud of him and his family.”
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