Barely nine hours have passed since the most affirming night in Blackpool's recent history, and as he enthusiastically converses about a club reborn, Terry McPhillips is talking bird droppings.
He is praising more than 100 volunteers who gave up their week to scrape faeces off the faded tangerine seats at Bloomfield Road. Describing how disgusting the stadium had became under the wretched Owen Oyston is tricky, but McPhillips manages it.
'The bird muck in one corner was atrocious,' the Blackpool manager says. 'This is years of muck on top of muck. It's almost concrete. The stadium has been neglected. Really neglected. Who wants to sit on a seat with bird muck all over it?'
Blackpool manager Terry McPhillips is enthusiastic about the reborn club's future
Controversial chairman Owen Oyston was removed from the club's board last week
McPhillips then delivers the perfect metaphor for Oyston's disgraceful 31-year reign. 'There has been a seagull decomposing in the car park for six months,' he sighs.
'That sums it up. It's been lying just by Jimmy Armfield's statue. I didn't realise how bad that statue was, by the way. What a botched job the paving around it was. Oh my God. Slabs at different levels. Gaps, holes in it. How can that happen? This is the great Jimmy Armfield. It's ridiculous. It's in a poor state. Who was responsible for that?'
Thursday is day four of the big clean before Saturday's joyous homecoming against Southend United. A sell-out is expected.
Tuesday's late 2-1 victory at Accrington, in front of 1,900 travelling fans, was the first act of unity since Oyston's court-ordered removal last month. The players fed off their fresh support and are not ruling out a tilt at the League One play-offs, provided the EFL do not impose a 12-point deduction for entering receivership.
100 volunteers helped scraped faeces off the faded tangerine seats at Bloomfield Road
McPhillips says that the state that the Jimmy Armfield statue was left in was ridiculous
There has been so much to do on the Fylde Coast. The kitchens, disused for years, are filthy. The scoreboard needed fixing. Card machines don't work because WiFi bills went unpaid. Fleetwood Town owner Andy Pilley, a lifelong Blackpool fan, has been in to help. The pitch, unloved for years, is near unplayable.
Receivers, led by Paul Cooper, must find a buyer so the club can be sold to pay off some of the £25million owed by the Oyston family to Latvian banker Valeri Belokon, a former director at the club.
The change in mood at Accrington's Wham Stadium, the joviality and camaraderie many clubs take for granted, was striking. This was a town stuck in reverse during a courageous five-year boycott, but McPhillips is now discussing
