SWFC operations manager John Rutherford found himself working to full capacity throughout the 2007/08 campaign following the devastation of last summer's floods.

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Speaking exclusively to Wednesday World Rutherford reflected on the unprecedented events of June 2007 and said: "It's difficult to imagine if you look at the river now, it's more of a trickle and probably wouldn't even cover your feet if you walked across. But it was really frightening at the time and hopefully a once in a 150-year occurrence."

The incredible scenes of Hillsborough under water will live long in the memory of all those associated with the club, but shedding the deluge was just the start of the clean-up process for John and his staff.

He explained: "Once the water had receded and we took the water pumps off the pitch, we had the place totally silted up with sand and mud which was contaminated with things like E. Coli so the first job was to get the whole area cleaned up. There was literally tons of silt - and that was an operation in itself.

"The work that people at this club did was absolutely phenomenal. The water was up to Row F in the stands and that's a lot of seats to get clean.

"The last task is the changing rooms, which we temporary refurbished after the floods. We've refurbished the whole of the ground floor and the pitch, of course, which was the main casualty."

Describing the aftermath of the flood, John pointed out that the directors' entrance and the SWFC superstore were amongst the worst areas affected.

He said: "You were walking in on carpets that were sodden and again the silt had been laid down there and the carpets were sticking to your feet as you walked.

"We lost most of the stock in the superstore, everything that was out on display, we lost the ticket office, the wiring was ruined and I know we had difficulty with our supporters buying tickets because we lost all the electrical systems and we literally had to start from scratch again."

The new superstore combined with the ticket office and the directors' foyer are among the new developments to emerge from the carnage and next on the list is the pitch.

Looking at the Hillsborough surface now following last term's emergency 'sticking plaster', the lush green grass visible is in sharp contrast to the shocking images of last summer.

John concluded: "This time last year my comment was that the pitch looked like a billiard table, it looked absolutely fantastic. But then it resembled a lake rather than a football field.

"Mother Nature won and there was absolutely nothing we could do to prevent it."