VETCH Field was once the proud home of Swansea City and occasionally the Wales national team.
With a capacity of 12,000 when it closed and 30,000 in its heyday, it’s a place that Swansea City fans called home from 1912 all the way up until 2005.
It was once host to The Who in 1976 and Stevie Wonder in 1984 for packed out concerts.
However, there are few clues that Swansea’s stadium ever stood on the site of the Vetch now.
The stands of the once iconic stadium were knocked down in 2011, after Swansea left for the Swansea.com Stadium in 2005.
The stadium site is a local park and almost all remnants of the ground have been wiped out.
The only clues that a stadium once stood there is an old gate for the East Stand that now leads only to bricked up walls and a rusting players’ entrance that sits between two houses.
There is also an old wall from the ground which sits in the corner of the park, which is helpfully labelled with Swansea City graffiti.
But most shocking of all is the image of where the pitch once stood.
Now a non-descript local park, it consists of a series of fields with only a concrete cage being present for anyone that wants to play football.
The stadium lay completely abandoned between 2005 and 2011, much to the annoyance of fans.
Pictures from those six years show a post-apocalyptic image of crumbling stands stood between grass that had not been cut since 2005.
The site was meant to become a housing development but bureaucracy meant it stood derelict until 2011.
When demolition finally began, angry fans ‘stole’ artefacts they thought should be preserved for the club’s history.
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Most notable of this was the Vetch Field clock which went missing for a period of time before fans came forward to donate the artefact to the Swansea museum.
One part of the Vetch does remain in tact among the confines of the local park however.
It was ruled that the centre circle could not be touched during redevelopment due to fans’ ashes being spread on it.
Swansea have been at their new home, the Swansea.com Stadium, since 2005.
During that period the team were promoted to the Premier League in 2011 which marked one of the most successful period in the club’s history.
After establishing themselves as a top tier side, they went onto win the 2013 League Cup with an iconic side that included cult hero Michu.
Their new ground would go on to host Europa League football as a result, with a cup run that included a 3-0 away victory against Valencia.
While the new stadium has seen some good times, many Swans fans still believe that the atmosphere cannot compare to the old Vetch.
