White Rock Lives

A brand new dawn arrives for Swansea City tomorrow. The new stadium - capacity 20,200 opens with a sell out on the reduced capacity of 12,400 for Alan Curtis' testimonial against Fulham. The Vetch is officially no more and as surreal as it may seem, tomorrow we will watch football in the new place that we call home.

The seats will shine, the toilets will be fresh and the surroundings will be new as, for most, will be the faces around the seats. Well, for now anyway. A new host of friendships are to be formed and Kenny Jackett will send out the first Swansea City side to grace the White Rock turf in front of the paying public.

It's a big day and one fitting of the legend that we pay tribute to. And despite the skills of Trundle, Forbes, Britton et al, the biggest moment for me will be seeing Alan Curtis putting back on his Swansea City shirt and gracing the turf with the skills that we know he still has.

All positives apart from the sheer fact that the stadium has no name. Sorry but I will never utter the words "Are you coming to the New Stadium, Swansea" and you will never see on this site under the match report headlines "Today at the New Stadium, Swansea" the council have ballsed it up and gone against the wishes of the very large majority of the online support.

You can argue that the online fanbase is a small percentage of the overall support but I will argue back that it's a cross section that gives a good indication of how the fans are really thinking.

As a reminder, the previous council were very adamant that they would not use the name Morfa so they introduced the name White Rock into the fanbase. It took some getting used to but it stuck and now most people refer to the stadium as White Rock. Council elections came, council elections went and signs were erected proudly displaying the name "White Rock Stadium" And then just a few days later - 21st July 2004 - the council withdrew the name. The reasons sounded valid enough "We need a clean stadium name to sell to sponsors" even though many suspected it was to wipe the mark of the previous regime off the stadium

And so we waited. We sat back, watched, listened and waited for the news on which company would sponsor our new stadium. And maybe we also hoped that NTL would like "NTL White Rock Stadium" or something along those lines. Christmas came, Christmas went but no-one gave us a stadium name. White Rock lived on, the name grew and people were into it. Endless rumours of sponsors passed and still nothing until we got to today when finally they had to admit that they had not sold the stadium naming rights. Well, they never admitted it but at the end of it that is what it boils down to. So we hear the name "New Stadium, Swansea" and the same old rubbish that it needs to be clean to sell it.

Well it's been clean for a year and it ain't been sold so either no-one has been bothering to try or no-one wants to buy it. And so the name White Rock lives on.

The fans seem pretty certain on this and over 1000 people have now signed the Once White Rock petition. The name lives amongst the fans and clearly it is the fans that want this name.

But do the fans have a say? Why not? After all, we are the people who 23 times a season will pump our money into the stadium. Indeed, more than 8000 of us already have done just that through season ticket purchases and the like. 12,400 people have tickets for tomorrow and if we assume the online support is a good cross section then the large majority want the name.

Sorry peeps but it is time to be on the soapbox. Say it loud, say it proud "WHITE ROCK STADIUM"

Sign the petition and if you want a new chant for tomorrow then choose one of these two

"Nice Ground, Shit Name"

or

"White Rock, There's Only One White Rock"

SAY IT LOUD, SAY IT PROUD, WHITE ROCK STADIUM

Click Here To Sign The Petition

POLL RESULTS - FEBRUARY 2005

719 votes