Sport
A wide range of sports and physical activities are catered for within the town and its immediate locality. Most sports facilities in the town, and the wider borough, are provided through Sportspace (the operating name of Dacorum Sports Trust). They have operated several facilities including a Sports Centre, Swimming Pools and Running Track previously run by Dacorum Borough Council and others sited at schools, since April 2004. Dacorum Sports Trust is a non-profit company limited by guarantee and a registered charity managed by a Board of Trustees. Surpluses (profits) are reinvested into sports facilities.
Hemel Hempstead Town football club dates back to 1885 and now play in the Southern Football League Premier Division. Nicknamed The Tudors, they play at Vauxhall Road in the Adeyfield area of the town; this was the site of the former sports club for the employees of Brocks Fireworks. There are, of course, many amateur sides throughout the town.
The Camelot Rugby Club plays Rugby Union and it is one of the oldest clubs in England, being founded in 1919. The club's home ground is in Chaulden. Hemel Stags, founded in 1981, are the only rugby league team from the South of England to play in the Rugby League Conference National league. Indeed, their success has led to the Rugby Football League agreeing to admit the team to Championship 1 for the 2013 season. In addition, rugby league is now played at every senior school in the town.
Hemel Hempstead Town Cricket Club, founded in 1850, has a pitch and practice facilities at Heath Park, near the town centre. The Boxmoor Cricket Club, founded in 1857, have a ground nearby on Blackbirds Moor. At Leverstock Green, there is the eponymously named Leverstock Green Cricket Club.
Hemel Hempstead has an indoor Snow Centre, a real snow indoor sports venue which, opened in April 2009, and offers a range of indoor snow based sports and activities.
Dacorum Athletic Club is based at Jarmans Park. Hemel Hempstead Bowls Club has its greens at Gadebridge Park.
Gadebridge Park also has an outdoor skatepark that was designed and supplied by local extreme sports fanatics "Hemel Skates" after earning ₤65,000 through fundraising.
Leverstock Green Tennis Club provides courts and coaching for members and other courts are available in public parks. There are private indoor facilities at Hemel Indoor Tennis Centre at Abbot's Hill School, Nash Mills.
The local authority (Dacorum Borough Council) provides the infrastructure for several of the sports mentioned above. In addition, there is a sports centre at Boxmoor and shared public facilities at a number of secondary schools, provided via Sportspace. These provide multi-purpose courts (badminton, basketball, etc.), gymnasia and swimming pools. There are also private, member only gymnasia.
There are two 18-hole golf courses just outside the south western edge of the town. One is in the grounds of Shendish Manor and the other, Little Hay is off Box Lane, on Box Moor Trust land. There was also a nine hole course (Boxmoor) also located on Box Lane. This closed in July 2011, and is now overgrown, mainly used for people walking their dogs.
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Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“How long, then, Catiline, while you abuse our patience? How long is this madness of yours to make sport of us?”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed,
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o’er the green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“Rabelais, for instance, is intolerable; one chapter is better than a volume,—it may be sport to him, but it is death to us. A mere humorist, indeed, is a most unhappy man; and his readers are most unhappy also.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)