avatar image
Advertisement
PostMag
Life.Culture.Discovery.

Why the Hong Kong Coliseum was built – to meet demand and avoid embarrassment

At a cost of HK$140 million, the stadium was hailed as a ‘tribute to leisure’ when it finally opened in 1983

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
The Hong Kong Coliseum in Hung Hom under construction, in January 1978. Picture: SCMP

Hong Kong needs a 15,000-seat covered sports stadium by 1970, an Urban Council committee says. A site at the Hunghom reclamation would be acceptable,” ran the story in the South China Morning Post on January 5, 1966.

The need for a stadium was clear, the committee had argued, “as Hong Kong was growing until it would soon compare with Lancashire, Greater Paris or Greater Osaka” the story continued. This, “along with a high proportion of young residents, the gulf between young and old, the effects of improved education, living and leisure standards, and the pressures of limited space, [had] resulted in a ‘tremendous upsurge in the demand for public recreation facilities of all kinds.’”

Hong Kong Coliseum would be a long time coming. On November 21, 1968, the Post reported that the Urban Council had accepted in principle a feasibility study for a HK$10 million indoor stadium. But it would be 1976 before work began on the by then HK$60 million facility.

The presence of the Hunghom indoor stadium will save any embarrassment when we stage an international event. Most foreign visitors laugh when they see our facilities
Hongkong Badminton Association president, Tong Yun-kai

“The stadium, to be one of the largest of its kind in the world, will be constructed on the podium deck above the new railway marshalling yard next to the new Hunghom station,” the Post reported on February 27 of that year.

Advertisement