Born in Streatham, and a Croydon resident since the 1980s, Christine has encapsulated the greatest qualities of the club she first arrived at in 1998, serving with warmth, diligence and shrewd judgment but, above all, always being happy to go the extra mile for the many managers, players, footballing staff, officials and supporters she has worked alongside.
There are few who know more about the inner workings of Palace than Christine – in stark contrast, she freely admits, to when she first came to the club, having previously worked as a PA in the textile industry – arriving at Palace with little to no knowledge of football, save for her family’s love for the club.
“I arrived at Palace as an office manager, basically,” Christine recalls. “I’d given up work 10 years beforehand to raise my family, but then I decided it was time to go back to work.
“I was sent to Palace as a temp, on the catering side. The club eventually took it in-house and they kept on asking me to stay permanently – eventually, I did! One day, [former Chief Executive] Phil Alexander asked if I would go down to the training ground, because the secretary who was in place had gone off sick and they didn’t have anyone to help them.
“Iain Dowie was the manager at that time, so I worked with him and his team, and then when the former secretary left, they asked me to take over the role. I’ve been at the training ground ever since!
“I didn’t know a thing about football, I have to say! But I picked up all sorts of information as I learned what I had to do to help the team out. That was the year [2004/05] we got promoted to the Premier League. It was a big learning curve – but I’ve gone on from there!
