SwanseaCityAFC.co.uk is now 8 years old, we take a look at how the site has changed since it started in 2001.
Swansea City AFC.co.uk is 8 years old now, Happy Birthday to us! Since starting the website when I was 14 back then, it has grown, progressed and improved massively from the beginning.
When I started it in 2001, the Swans were miles away from the club we are now. We were a small, struggling basement League club and there were troubling times ahead under Mike Lewis and Tony P*tty, I can’t type his full name.
The site could be compared to the Swans at that time really, small, going nowhere and not very good to look at!
It started off with a very simple site made with Tripod and their own website-building software Trellix Web. Back then I knew nothing about Web Design, the internet or computers but as I began studying it in college and using Macromedia Dreamweaver, I was able to come up with better designs the following years.
One of the earliest designs above.
7 months later and still no improvement in early 2002.
Finally in 2002-2003, the look of the site significantly improved with much better designs and organised content such as News, Reports and Previews.
Here are 2 of our better designs in 2002 and 2003:
In April 2004, the site then moved to using a more automatic method of developing the website using a system called PHP Nuke. This meant no designing, far less updating and it was far easier to manage. 
I haven’t got a preview of what the site looked like then, but it was a simple grey colour scheme like the picture above.
With the move to PHP Nuke, this also saw the site have a Message Forum for the first time and a fans community began to grow.
Thanks to a useful website, you can view what websites looked like years ago
You can get an idea of the site here There’s no images or style to the website here though.
You can also view what our forum was like 5 years ago here
I was then approached by a new Football network, Vital Football exactly 4 years ago and after much consideration and discussion with the owners, the site joined the network when it officially launched on October 25th 2005.
It proved to be an excellent move for the site, the site traffic instantly increased and has continued to increase since the start. Our member base has doubled to over 2,600 and the Forum received a big boost with more fans joining up and sharing their thoughts.
From the awful site it was when it started in 2001, it’s continued to grow and is now one of the main resources for Swansea City fans to keep updated on the Swans and to have their say.
The website will have another facelift and sometime next week we’ll have a new design plus new features and updates.
Here’s to another 8 years and a lot more of SwanseaCityAFC.co.uk on Vital Football!
If you’ve yet to join us, you can register free here. We always welcome new members to join us in the forum so don’t be shy and make yourself known in the Forums here
