The National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace in south London, England is a large sports centre and athletics stadium. It was opened in 1964 in Crystal Palace Park, close to the site of the former Crystal Palace, in the former parkland and also usurping part of the former grand prix circuit.
It was one of the five National Sports Centres, run on behalf of Sport England, but responsibility has been transferred to the London Development Agency and is managed by Greenwich Leisure Limited. It is a Grade II* listed building.
The athletics stadium has a capacity of 15,500, which can be increased up to 24,000 with temporary seating. It hosts international athletics meetings. The complex also hosts a 50 m swimming pool. However both the athletics stadium and the aquatics centre have been superseded as London's main facilities for their sports by the Olympic Stadium and the London Aquatics Centre which were constructed in Stratford in east London for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Famous quotes containing the words crystal, palace, national, sports and/or centre:
“We have ... a thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of Man.... It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us—but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all;
No palace too great, no cottage too small.”
—Phillips Brooks (1835–1893)
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)