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

the fact that the distinguished Budapest Skating Association joined the club with its entire membership. The renovation of the complex, by that time grown into a fully-fledged athletics centre, and the construction of a new hall were placed on the agenda. The new club house, built of reinforced concrete and timber to plans by Gyula Sándy, was inaugurated on 25 August 1913. After World War 11, BBTE was disbanded in a humiliating manner and its club house was demolished. The club’s other complex, a fine sports centre built in modernist style, was taken over by Vasas, the iron-workers’ sports association.

The BANKS AND ISLANDS OF THE DANUBE

Once there were dozens of boat houses, beaches and lidos flanking the river on both sides from the Római Bank to Lágymányos, from the Palota Island to Soroksár, just as on the southern section of Margaret Island and even on Csepel Island. The first half of the century was a period of boom for rowers, and although this golden age is unlikely ever to return, more and more people take to the river in their boats every summer on the shores of “Római”.

Nép-sziget (People’s Island) and Óbuda Island

Lying in the upper reaches of the river’s Budapest stretch, Nép-sziget (or, as its older name was, Szúnyog-sziget or Mosquito Island) and the Újpest Bay alongside it have been a popular winter harbour with the people of the Danube. From the end of the 19th century on, numerous rowers’ associations made their bases here and the quiet, secluded territory was soon discovered by those going in for “land-based” sports, too. In the spring of 1903, players of the Újpest Football Association (GTE) moved in here to play their first- division games for nearly twenty years in this location. The club also had a swimming pool for a while on the river here until it was relocated to Megyeri út.

Óbuda Island had similar qualities, and yet it was not to become a real sports centre, because the manage19