Zeidler Miklós: Sporting Spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)

Golfers on the Sváb-hegy link

known for the advanced stage of development it had reached, suggest that there must have been numerous enthusiasts of physical exercise and contests two millennia ago. At a time modern sports were rapidly gaining ground everywhere, in the 1870s and 1880s, several associations for the cultivation of the widest variety of sports were formed in this quarter of the city. Their swimmers, water-polo and football players as well as their gymnasts competed in the top division of their various sports. The majority of Obuda’s sports facilities are still related to water sports, while the football field at the brick factory near Bécsi út and pitches elsewhere disappeared one after the other. The remaining one or two are mainly used by amateur players. The only exception is the stadium of the Third District Fencing and Gymnastics Association (TVE) on Hévízi út (before that the sports grounds of the Óbuda Gymnastics Association in Filatori utca), which was recently renovated after the football team reached the first division.

The vicinity of the Danube and the natural springs welling up in Óbuda are mainly responsible for the fact that locals have developed a kind of water-borne way of life. In the first half of the 20th century one swimming pool was built after the other, next to the existing ones. The swimming life of TVE was organised around the Császár and the Lukács Baths within a stone’s throw of the southern border of the district. It was here that the

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