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 However both the athletics stadium and the aquatics centre have been superseded as London's main facilities for their sports by the Olympic Stadium and the London Aquatics Centre which were constructed in Stratford in east London for the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:
“Shall we gather at the river,
Where bright angel feet have trod;
With its crystal tide for ever,
Flowing by the throne of God?”
—Robert Lowry (1826–1899)
“It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything.”
—Edgar Albert Guest (1881–1959)
“There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people’s safety and greatness.”
—Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)
“Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one’s behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)