In common with many smaller football grounds, Aberystwyth Town Football Club's home ground at Park Avenue, has never been entirely enclosed by permanent grandstand structures. Instead, much of the ground stood open with the south stand, which backed onto the river Rheidol, being the only permanent structure on the site for several decades in the twentieth century. Prior to being made available to the club in 1907, Park Avenue (or the Smithfield as it was previously known) had been used by students from the university for their team sports and as a commercial tennis ground before that. The university sides had bequeathed a pavilion on the north side although this was subsequently demolished being better suited to tennis than to soccer.

Given the location (not to mention the temperamental weather in west Wales), the Smithfield was prone to often disastrous flooding and one of the club's first actions upon taking hold of the lease was to put in adequate drainage and to lay down a cinder track for spectators to stand on rather than have paying customers squelching about in the mud. Following the First World War and the return to normal civilian life, the question of solving the issues of flooding at the Smithfield was tackled once again; this time by raising the level of the ground by around four feet using refuse from the Infirmary and local Sewerage Works. As elsewhere, the construction of a grandstand that obscured the previously free view from higher ground (in this case Penparcau Hill) was also high on the agenda along with ticket booths and turnstiles and the proper enclosure of the field. The stand was eventually constructed in 1926 and the Smithfield had finally taken on the attributes of a modern lower-league stadium. This was demolished in 2000 during the refurbishment of the ground and a new, modern stand was added in its place.

Daryl Leeworthy, 17 October 2011.