“We took everything down and started again. We took all the old supports down, which looked like you could blow them away they were so rusty. It was a huge job and has taken all summer to get done. We’ve had abseilers here every day trying to fix it.
“We cleaned the Main Stand roof, which was very different from doing the Holmesdale, when we used a robot. This time we used humans and all had to have rope access – we had to put lines in so they could all hang on ropes. That looks a thousand times better – it had never been cleaned, as far as I know.
“We’ve also done a massive deep clean in the stadium. We’ve really gone into more detail this time.
“We’re currently doing some work in the toilets, changing the old basin sinks to troughs. They look a lot better and we’re trying to get that across the stadium. It looks better and you can get more people through.
“We do a repaint everywhere, rebrand the stadium.
“Finally, we’ve replaced five turnstiles which were obsolete and had been there a very long time. Some of the ones in the Holmesdale and Main Stand. We had new ones made. The difficulty is if we go with modern turnstiles you have to rebuild the whole wall, so we’ve found a company that will make them to fit.”
Sharon and her department has a list of 297 ‘snags’ to sort and a longer one for ideas and projects to improve Selhurst. “My Filofax is bursting!” she jokes.
But the attention to detail and relentless work is all done to one end: improving supporters’ time at the club.
Sharon elaborates, giving particular focus to safety in the coming months:
