History
Named due to the vetch (a type of legume - not a cabbage as popularly misbelieved in most of south Wales) that was grown on its surface at the time, the site was owned by Swansea Gaslight Company in 1912, when a professional football team was formed in the town. The site was in a good location and deemed surplus to requirements at the Gas Company, so the club moved in. Originally, the surface was made of compacted coal cinder and players had to wear knee pads for the first season of football there. Having seen many changes during its 93 years (detailed below), the Vetch took its final bow with an FAW Premier Cup Final against Wrexham. After the game, the seats, turf, advertising hoardings and anything else fans could get their hands on were removed from the ground, and is currently in the process of being demolished as the council seek permission to build on the land there, the entrances have been boarded up and the turf of the pitch has been taken up. The 2004-05 season was the first time in 93 years that the Vetch had the highest average attendance in its division.
Read more about this topic: Vetch Field
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“The principle office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–117)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)