Dates Visited This Ground
25/1/2003 - Swansea 2 Lincoln City 0
4/10/2003 - Swansea 2 Lincoln City 2
Those of you who were surprised about my comments
about grounds such as Belle Vue or Boothferry Park will get a return to normality now as we get to one of my least favourites
grounds that thankfully, I never have to visit again. I do have some good memories of the Vetch Field, such as myself and
my friend Grundy being bored due to the coach getting there 3 hours early, so we went around pretending to be Irish, it was
amusing for about 10 seconds.
Both times I went to the Vetch, the coaches left Sincil Bank at 8am and both
times, we got to Swansea at 12noon including a stop of 45 minutes, it was surreal, getting to a ground that's 250 miles away
quicker than grounds considerable closer such as Orient, Southend and Wrexham. This often left time to go around the area
surrounding the ground and there were a few pubs around the area that let us play pool in there until their local yobs came
along and then we were asked to leave.
Anyway, back to the ground, I have been in 2 different stands at the Vetch.
The first stand behind the goal was a huge terracing that was very very shallow which was unfortunate because the only place
to get a decent view, was right at the front but no matter where you stood in the stand, the view of the other end of the
pitch was diabolical. The amusing thing about this stand is the catering. Towards the right hand side of the stand was a coffee
jar shaped hut, and if you wanted anything, you had to stick your hand about 3 feet through a hole in the fence to reach this.
The second end that we had been in, was the stand to the right hand side of
the terrace and it was a very very very small seating area that ran the length of the pitch. It was only about 6 rows high
and despite being a side on view, being stuck a very small corner of the stand meant that the view was indeed worse than
the terracing. This catering department was even more bizarre in this stand. It was quite literally just an alcove dug out
into the wall. The toilet facilities were also undesireable, 2 portacabins.
The other stands at the ground were, to put it frank, butt ugly. The stand behind
the FARRRRRRRRR goal was an indication of Welsh efficiency. They had started to build a new stand at that end but had to stop
2/3 of the way when they released that they would have to buy up people's houses, something that the owners of those houses
didn't want to do. The stand is huge, it has a tiny bit of terracing at the bottom but has a massive seating section above
this that looks very very sparse.
The final stand was a pitch length terrace that was easily the best stand at
the ground and that was saying something. One thing I was always curious about was how empty this ground looked when they
were only getting crowds of around 3,000 a few years ago.
The atmosphere at the Vetch was rather amusing and fairly loud. In my visits,
there are 2 chants that stick to memory. One was "2-0 to the Sheep Shaggers" and the other was "Have you ever seen your ****",
directed at Sid. Talking of Sid, apparantly when we went 2-0 in the 2003/4 season, the cameras turn to the away end and you
can see Sid pretending to fuck his inflatable sheep that he'd brought to the ground.
Overall, I though the Vetch, for lack of a better word, was shite and I
am delighted that we never have to visit this ground again.
