Chapter 22: Sport
The schemes put in hand some years ago to improve the Colony's recreation facilities are at last coming to fruition. The year's big event was the opening of the Government Sports Stadium in Causeway Bay, seating 28,500 spectators. The facilities which the Stadium provides are described in Chapter 14, under Public Works.
The reclamation of a large area in Causeway Bay is nearing completion and has been named Victoria Park. The site is the former typhoon anchorage, which has been reprovided to the seaward. At the entrance to the Park is the rehabilitated statue of Queen Victoria which before the war stood in Statue Square.
Victoria Park, towards the cost of which the Jockey Club contributed $23m., is the most notable contribution made to recreation for the under-privileged since refugees from China sent the Colony's population up far beyond normal limits. The facilities it offers are free, and at present consist chiefly of miniature football and basketball grounds. The Govern- ment has announced its intention of constructing a 50-metre swimming pool in the Park, for which the Jockey Club has given another $1,300,000. The lack of such a pool has hitherto been a main obstacle in the way of training swim- mers for international competitions.
Hong Kong intends to participate in the 1956 Olympic Games at Melbourne, and the Amateur Sports Federation and Olympic Committee have been busy during the year correlating the efforts of the controlling bodies of various sports in the Colony with this end in view.
Association football attracts larger crowds than any other sport, and it is second only to horse-racing in the amount of money involved. Three overseas football teams visited Hong Kong: in January, Grasshopper (Zurich), result (Hong Kong score first) 0-1, 1-2, 0-1; in February, Admira (Vienna), 3-3, 2-5, 2-1; and in December, the Club Ferroviario de Mozambique, 2-1, 1-1, 3-0. In the local inter-
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