PEOPLE
“London’s sports architecture is a glorious mish mash”
Simon Inglis, architectural and sports historian P
layed in London, the latest book by sports and architectural historian Simon Inglis, charts the history of every sport played in any venue in
London. The book, which was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2014, also explores London’s sports buildings, from its first century Roman amphitheatre to the Olympic Stadium, as well as many venues that will be unknown to most readers. “A lot of my delight was in finding the
obscure,” said Inglis. “Everybody’s heard of Wimbledon and Twickenham and Wembley, and of course we had to deal with them, but there are some wonderful examples of more obscure sports buildings in the book, which are often not even known to locals. We found the oldest gymnasium building in the middle of a housing estate
in Croydon, for example. It’s called Havelock Hall, it was built in 1851, and was the gymnasium of a military academy.” Played in London is part of the Played
in Britain series, which launched in 2004 and has explored the sporting heritage of Manchester, Birmingham, Tyne and Wear and Glasgow. So why has Inglis waited until now to explore London’s sporting past? “Obviously it’s inconceivable to have a
series about Britain’s sporting heritage without London – it’s arguably the biggest and more important sporting city in the world – but we wanted to build up our knowledge before tackling the city. It’s so huge. With the other books, we were dealing with five or six local authorities at the most. In London, there are 33. The research involved was enormous, but it had to be done.”
The sheer number and variety of sports
buildings in the capital are what make the book so fascinating, and what made it so labour intensive to research. “London’s sports architecture is varied and fragmented. It reflects the city itself
– it’s a glorious mish mash. There’s no real strategy behind it. That’s sometimes to the detriment of the city – the impasse over Crystal Palace at the moment is a direct result of poor strategic thinking in the long term – but it does mean you get a real variety of buildings. Only Melbourne comes close in terms of the sheer number and variety of sports buildings.” Inglis has championed sports venues
of all types, and in October, the Rom skatepark in east London, Essex became the first skatepark in Europe to be given listed status as a result of his
Simon Inglis’ Played in London: Charting the Heritage of a City at Play was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 10
sportsmanagement.co.uk issue 2 2015 © Cybertrek 2015
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