In this interview, we talk to the man whose company name has been emblazoned across our club’s shirts and around the ground as sponsors for the last couple of seasons…Martin Maloney, of Capital Sky. 

Hello, Martin, can you tell us a bit about yourself to start with please?

I moved to England from Ireland at the age of 14 to build my life and career, settling in London at first before moving to Luton, where my family have all been brought up. My daughter lives here, my grandkids are born and raised here and my home is here. As is my business, which is Capital Sky: we’ve been delighted to be sponsors at Luton Town for the last couple of seasons. I’ve been in the construction industry for almost 40 years, and the company has been going for quite some years now. We’ve got a lot of experience behind us, we’ve done some amazing projects throughout the years around the country – and now we’re involved in what is absolutely my favourite ever…Luton Town’s brilliant new stadium at Power Court.  

How did you get involved at Luton Town?

We’d been doing some work for the club at Kenilworth Road and over at the Power Court site and when it looked like we might get promoted to the Premier League we – the company, Gary and Mike Moran – were looking at the major projects that would be needed to be done to improve the ground for the next season. But would promotion happen? Would it not?

The club knew they’d need to do a lot in a short time, didn’t they – including a whole new Bobbers Stand?

Yes, so when it looked like promotion might actually happen, Gary said, ‘look I’m going to give you a call and I want you to have your machines ready the next day because we have no time to spare’. 

So, the whistle blew at Wembley, we won, we’re so happy – it was overwhelming for us, the fans, the family, the whole community. And lo and behold Gary appears carrying a few glasses of champagne and said ‘get yourself there tomorrow morning, we need to get this moving!’

And get it moving we certainly did. With 12 weeks of non-stop, seven days a week work. The demolition of the boxes and old Bobbers stand, the asbestos removal, the new stand build, the gantry, the lighting, the power, the extra entrances and facilities – and, this really is something to be proud of, it was all done by people from the Luton area. We managed the whole process with Gary and his team and every day we had meetings and briefings with the guys on site. We were working to such a tight schedule that had to think on our feet and make some massive decisions along the way. We had four big tables in the Eric Morecambe Lounge and we moved the work forward hour by hour, there weren’t days or weeks to spare thinking about it and sometimes we came across things that meant changing plans on the spot. 

We had very good supply chains in place which meant we weren’t delayed and we worked long, long hours. We were putting concrete in on Sunday nights for instance. But the neighbours were incredibly understanding and helpful especially considering how close the works were to their homes. 

The local community was so supportive. Luton Borough Council gave us every support for the project, too. They knew how important it was and shared the passion to get it done, for Luton and for what it was bringing to the area. They also knew the time constraints, so they smoothed the way with licences and so on, and with that support and an incredible amount of hard work, and vision, we achieved miracles in that short time. When we handed everything over we all went for a drink to celebrate and we were so very proud of what we’d achieved. It was miraculous, really – and it wasn’t just the Bobbers by the way, there was work all around the ground like digging out and installing new toilets in the Oak Road end, the floodlights and plenty more. There was so much done in so little time.

I think it amazed some people what we managed to get done in that summer break. It made the news at home and abroad – we had a principal designer with us for all the Health and Safety compliance checks; you have to have an independent person for that. He was American and his wife was in New York. Someone took a picture and the story appeared on page two of the New York Times. It said, “Fairy tale club gets its gold”. That was the result of 200 Luton people working flat out to get our ‘small town club’ ready for the Premier League. That says so much about our town and our people.

We achieved this because we worked as one team with Gary, the board, the staff and all the people behind the scenes. You don’t realise how many people work hard in the background at Luton Town until you start working with them, and then you start to see the amount of people the football club brings together, the employees – and the supporters and the community. We’re all Luton. 

Since then, we’ve continued working on various projects at Kenilworth Road and that included installing 2,750 safe standing spaces in the Oak Road end. This illustrates the way the club does things differently. They went to the market to see what designs for safe standing seats and railing  were available, and didn’t care about what was on offer. None of it was quite right for what we wanted. Gary came up with some sketches, and we took the design to our steel manufacturer and had them built to our own specification. Designed and installed by ourselves, collectively. That illustrates how well we work together. 

Now on to Power Court…we want to hear all about what you’re doing there…

We’d already created some car parks on the site and done some enabling and investigation work for the club. As you know it’s a large and difficult site with all sorts of complications, so it was going to need a lot of work and that went out to tender. 

We knew the site and the challenges and opportunities it presented and our tender was, though I say it myself, pretty good and it won the contract. Gary and the club were very passionate that the work would be carried out by local people. This ‘Luton first’ thinking is a big part of the club’s strategy and thinking. 

What have been the main challenges as you prepare the site? It seems to have taken a long time, but then we’re all just as excited and impatient as kids at Christmas!

We looked at ways of how we could work smarter to save money, minimise disruption and be more efficient. There were some real challenges to the site, which is why the land had laid unused for so many years. 

This includes having to move a river, decontaminate the whole site after 180 years of industrial use, with old railway lines coming through it, remove Japanese knotweed and move a major power station, including cables underground with no complete plans to refer to. Some of those cables were 180, 120, 50 years old and over the whole 20 acre site there were hundreds of them. The electricity generated by the old works at the site was what had attracted and powered big industries throughout the town back in the day. All those cables had to be traced and be treated as if live. 

You know when you start on a site that old, you’re going to come across all sorts of complications that aren’t on any plans or maps. But the existing UK Power Network’s power generation had to be maintained – it serves a large part of Luton – with no disruption, as we built and tested a new one before decommissioning and demolishing the old one.  

Then there’s water. We not only needed to divert the River Lea, but there’s also an aquifer that flows under the site to a pumping station that provides clean drinking water for the whole town. So we’ve had to test the whole site constantly for water quality, working with the Environment Agency (EA), the council and Affinity Water. We also had to provide a new access pipe for the EA, which we’re installing now. These are all costly and time-consuming hurdles but we’ve made it work. There were sewers to replace, too: much of this goes on underground so isn’t immediately visible.

Overall, we’ve taken something like 27,000 samples as we’ve tested the ground constantly whilst working on decontamination. We had a full-time geologist working with us as we dug down to 12 metres for the rerouted river and we’ve worked with environmental and an archeological expert too. We’ve tested, screened and cleaned 20 acres across the site, coming across features and old building foundations that we didn’t have any prior information about. That’s the nature of any old industrial site, not just Power Court. But here we had a busway to one side and a 900-year-old church to the other, so we had to constantly monitor ground movement and stabilise whilst working. 

How much new material have you had to ship in for the groundworks? 

Minimal really. One of our major considerations from the start was trying to maximise reuse of materials on the site. Part of our tender was a materials management plan which meant we didn’t need to move thousands and thousands of cubic feet of materials, with thousands of lorry movements on and off site.

We crushed decontaminated materials and reused them to help create the stable platform for the stadium build. This is good environmental practice, not only saving 10,000 lorry movements but also for working without disrupting the church, transport links, town centre and the day-to-day life of Luton. We’ve put a big emphasis on logistics during groundwork and the build, to make sure we’re not blocking roads, and we’re doing that successfully I’d say. 

We’ve worked together with 2020 to work smartly and cost efficiently, optimising the budget with clever design and no compromise on quality – using the tailor’s principle of ‘measure twice to cut once’ to optimise value for every pound spent. 

Now we’ve reached the piling stage, what comes next?

So now, after 18 months of non-stop groundwork, we move on to the next stage. A very large, very visible, piling rig moved on to site just before the Christmas break for us to initiate preliminary test piling, which means we’ll be piling at full capacity when we’re all back in the New Year. A significant milestone to start 2026! 

There’s still groundwork going on – we have a main sewer which serves 10,000 homes to move, more complex maybe than expected as we were again given inaccurate information, always a problem with underground work on an old site. 

Piling is the start of the construction process, which will take around 26 months, and it will all – where possible – be done by local companies, under the supervision of main construction partners Limak, who have been brought in for their world class expertise and experience in projects of this size, including major football stadia. As the build takes shape, you’ll see concrete superstructures going up, then cladding, in stages as we start on the north side and the build follows the piling round each side of the stadium works. Then it’s on to fitting out and testing ready for the big day – aren’t we all looking forward to that!

What do you think Power Court will bring to the town?

Power Court won’t just create a new focal point for Luton, with its fabulous design, it’s creating jobs for Luton people too. We’ve had around 100 people on site for these last 18 months, that’ll rise to 300 in 2026 and then over 500 as construction proceeds. Then there’s all those back in the offices, that’ll add another 500 maybe, and all the other Luton companies working on the project. We’re not bringing in people from all around the UK and beyond, we’re employing people from the Luton area. And it’s not just for the short term. We’ve taken on seven apprentices and trainees this year, and we’ll be taking on more. They’re learning skills that will launch them on a career – like the 18-year-old who came to us to see what the sector is like and whose ambition is now to be a project manager.  The new stadium will create more employment through all the services and new initiatives around it too.

Power Court will bring so much to the town, leading the way in the renewal of the centre as Luton looks to a brighter future, with the airport expansion and new employers attracted to a growing economy. That’s one of the beauties of the location of the new stadium: it’s not built in a field out of town, it’s right in the heart, with two train stations, the busway, easy access by public transport and by car for park and ride. 

The council announced a new £1.7 billion investment in the town just weeks ago and that fits perfectly with 2020’s vision for the club and the town. I hope people realise that 2020 is doing this for the town. They took on a site no-one else could see the potential for and they’re giving Luton people and fans from all over something to be proud of. They’ve been so committed and courageous with that. Their vision is incredible: they’ve jumped over more hurdles to achieve this than any Grand National winner!

Power Court will help create a new image for the town and that’s something I’m so very proud to be part of. My grandson was born while we were working on the new Bobbers stand, and I can’t wait to take him to watch games at Power Court, as we enjoy a bright new future for the town. 

Lutonians will be proudly walking into Power Court not for just the next 10 years, but the next 100. 

Thank you, Martin, for a fascinating little glimpse into all that vast amount of work. We’re all looking forward to joining you and your family at Power Court, that’s for sure…but right now let’s give the lads our best Kenilworth Road support to help them build results today and through the rest of the season!