Stretford opened in 1972. Its location, sandwiched between Manchester United Football Stadium and Old Trafford Cricket Ground, may appear glamorous but in reality meant the need for car park stewards on match days!
The centre was sited immediately adjacent to Stretford Technical College but was operated completely independent of it. The College had priority booking rights for their full time students’ physical education programme but were not directly involved in the governance of the centre. Lancashire’s Physical Education Adviser had been the project leader and two physical educationalists were appointed as the first Manager/Assistant manager.
The sports facilities consisted of a two court sports hall with Granwood floor; a practice hall; squash courts and a weight training room. Finishes throughout the centre were basic. Social activities were limited to a small balcony area. There was no special provision for users with disabilities.
During the commissioning process an alternative to the standard island multigym was sought. Through discussion with Powersport a series of separate work stations, each with their own weight stacks were developed. These were arranged around the outside of the training room thus allowing for progression around the room and use by a greater number of people at any one time – revolutionary at the time!
Demand for the use of the facilities was enormous. Local demand added to considerably by the adjacent major transport route. ‘Rationing’ the use of the facilities in order to ensure that the centre provided for a range of activities and forms of use was a major task for management. For example the sports hall could have been filled with indoor football the whole time! As it was football was limited to one evening a week. (Notably there was an occasion when George Best and his night club five-a-side team had to be told that they could not play as there was a double booking!)
The Granwood floor in the sports hall helped the multi-use of the sports hall as it as possible to accommodate relatively hard wearing activities such as the North West Indoor Hockey League. In addition the floor supported a special events programme which (because of the position of the balcony) could be relatively easily televised. The centre took part in the BBC ‘Sportstown’ competition which was developed in association with Bernard Warden. This competition pitted teams of centre users against those of other centres in a series of ‘potted’ sports. It proved popular on TV and prepared the TV audience for watching a wider range of Olympic sports. One offshoot of the competition was that a young girl, who had shown some natural gymnastic talent at the Saturday morning recreation sessions and who performed for Stretford, was spotted and went on to compete at International level.
In 1974 the centre became part of a local authority leisure department for the first time as a consequence of a massive re-organisation of local government. The Metropolitan District of Trafford was formed from a number of very small authorities. In fact the new department had a larger budget than the entire expenditure of any one of the amalgamating authorities. This presented councillors and officers with a considerable challenge!
In 1976 a traditional swimming pool designed by in-house architects, without input from centre managers, was added to the centre. The centre has been further developed and in 2015 is operated as the Stretford Sports Village by the Trafford Community Leisure Trust.
Mike Fulford