Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 13, 2018

Stretford is a town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England. Lying on flat ground between the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal, it is 3.8 mi to the southwest of Manchester city centre. Historically in Lancashire, Stretford was an agricultural village during much of the 19th century known locally as Porkhampton, in reference to the large number of pigs produced for the nearby Manchester market. The arrival of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894, and the subsequent development of the Trafford Park industrial estate in the north of the town, accelerated the industrialisation that had begun in the late 19th century; by 2001 less than one per cent of Stretford's population was employed in agriculture. Stretford has been the home of Manchester United Football Club since 1910, and of Lancashire County Cricket Club since 1864. Residents have included the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, the painter L. S. Lowry, Morrissey, Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, Jay Kay of Jamiroquai, and Manchester's first multi-millionaire, the industrialist and philanthropist John Rylands.