Egy régi pálya a polgári korban – a Millenáris Sporttelep
An old playing field in the age of the middle classes – the Millenary Sports Establishment

Summary/Abstract: The study presents the history of the first modern rally field in Budapest, the Millenary Sports Establishment, built in 1896. The field was planned to become the setting for the open-air sports events that were part of the millenary celebrations. According to the initial plans, it was to be dismantled after the end of the year. Still, considering that the capital provided over no other sporting field of similar quality, and that rally sport was developing spectacularly, the field first received temporary maintenance permission and later evolved as the permanent official rally field. Along athletics and cycling, the new sports branch, football was also made a home there. The Hungarian national football team played its national games there between 1901 and 1911, from the beginnings until the completion of the big club stadiums. Although the field was one of the central sites of the Budapest sport life in the first half of the century, the World War, the world economic crisis and the financial problems arising from the changing popularity of the specific sports branches more than once drove the Millenary, that was supported from time to time by new investors (club associations, profit oriented organizers of competitions, the city council or the state itself) close to liquidation. Following the 1928 great reconstruction and the bicycle world championship of that same year, athletics and football were slowly squeezed out from the field, the Millenary gradually transformed into a classic velodrom and field races started to attract huge audiences. As a consequence of „one-sidedness”, especially the postwar decline of field cycling and the spreading of television and other forms of entertainment, the importance of the Millenary as a sports field significantly decreased.

• Details
• Contents