Turnstiles - The Apprentice Groundsman

We made a start on the cleaning the turnstiles today and completed the Cut Throat Lane and Newmarket Road ones.

The Newmarket Road area will be painted if we get time and have not run out off paint.

Today all the turnstiles were checked and repaired if faults found. The engineers check that the right number of people entering the ground is recorded. To do that they turn the stile and check the computer reading at the same time.

They traveled down from Nottingham and were at the ground by eight this morning. They had been at Sheffield United checking over 80 turnstiles yesterday and were travelling to another club this afternoon. They also deal with many clubs in the League.

While the doors where opened we decided to clean inside the areas

WT Ellison along with  WH Bailey Ltd made the majority of those installed at football and other areas of public access during the late 19th to the late 20th Centuries. Victorian sport had become a business as soon as there were players became proffessional or areas required to be maintained.

Features which made Ellison's unique and ahead of its competitors. A foot pedal meaning the operator could control the movement of bodies through the stile. Thus Ellison's advertised the product as 'rush preventive', more accurate and safer.   A tamper-resistant counter was built into the housing, enabling gate receipts to be tallied against admissions. This measure meant that fraud by gatemen was greatly reduced.

Elliston's ceased to trade in 1963. One of the reasons was due to the companies product being so durable and well made. There rarely went wrong or broke