Sports and Recreation
Cricket is the most popular sport in this urban area as well as the country and is usually played in the grounds around the city.
Football was at one time the most popular sport in the Colombo area, although it was eclipsed by Cricket after 1980. Four separate football clubs (Lido, Welikada Progress, Welikada Red Star and Welikada United) once used the EW Perera Park grounds at Welikada, Rajagiriya where a pavilion was constructed in the 1970s. However, when the grounds were destroyed by the JR Jayawardene regime in the late 1970s, the football clubs disappeared. Football continued to be played at the grounds at Obeysekerapura in Rajagiriya.
In the 1990s the Kotte Municipal Council constructed the Chandra Silva Stadium, to replace the EW Perera Grounds. Part of the grounds was sold and later used to construct the HSBC building. In 2007 the Municipality, with aid from the Ministry of Urban Development, completed the first stage of the new Chandra Silva Stadium on the site of a rubbish dump behind the HSBC building.
Recently, football has once more grown in popularity, and the sport now has a considerable following. The football association's new training facility at Kotte is aimed at harnessing and developing the available talent and organizing the individual players into a cohesive team. It includes a football playground with a sprinkler system, gym and a host of other facilities.
Other sports are mostly played in the numerous clubs and gyms, and include tennis, squash, billiards, horse riding, indoor cricket, badminton and table tennis. Horse riding can be pursued at the Premadasa Riding School in Nugegoda.
Coordinates: 6°54′39″N 79°53′16.21″E / 6.91083°N 79.8878361°E / 6.91083; 79.8878361
Read more about this topic: Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte
Famous quotes containing the words sports and/or recreation:
“Come, my Celia, let us prove
While we may the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever,
He at length our good will sever.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“Playing snooker gives you firm hands and helps to build up character. It is the ideal recreation for dedicated nuns.”
—Archbishop Luigi Barito (b. 1922)