The Hackney SPACe Sports Centre ("Sport and Performing Arts Centre") is a

leisure centre A leisure centre in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia (also called aquatic centres), Singapore and Canada is a purpose-built building or site, usually owned and operated by the city, borough council or municipal district council, where peopl ...

Hoxton Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, England. As a part of Shoreditch, it is often considered to be part of the East End – the historic core of wider East London. It was historically in the county of Middlesex until 1889. It l ...

in London Borough of Hackney,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It is part of

Hackney Community College New City College (NCC) is a large college of further education with campuses in East London and Essex. The college was formed in 2016 with the amalgamation of separate colleges, beginning with the merger between Tower Hamlets College and Hackney ...

and was opened in February 2001 following grants from

Sport England Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its role is to build the foundations of a community sport system by working with national governing bodies of sport, and other funded par ...

with the intention that it would become the venue for Centres of Excellence in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

netball Netball is a ball sport played on a court by two teams of seven players. It is among a rare number of sports which have been created exclusively for female competitors. The sport is played on indoor and outdoor netball courts and is specifical ...

and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

. The centre's main hall (dedicated to Malcolm Williams, whose work and vision were instrumental in getting SPACe built) can accommodate a range of indoor sports, and was the home venue in 2006/07 for the professional

team London United, who moved there from

Brunel University Brunel University London is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It was founded in 1966 and named after the Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In June 1 ...

in 2006. SPACe is also home to

Hackney Community College Basketball Academy The Hackney Community College's Basketball Academy is a basketball programme located in the London Borough of Hackney in the United Kingdom. It was originally designed to engage young people vulnerable to exclusion from education to gain qualifica ...

and Cricket Academy programmes. It is also home to many basketball teams that play in the London Metropolitan Basketball League (LMBL), the largest regional basketball league in the UK. SPACe has a gym and weights facility housing Olympic free weights and CV equipment as well as three dance studios. One of these has been named after Margaret Shepherd, who taught performing arts at the nearby

Hoxton Hall Hoxton Hall is a performance arts theatre and community centre in the Hoxton area of Shoreditch, at 130 Hoxton Street, in the London Borough of Hackney. A grade II* listed building, the theatre was first built as a Music hall in 1863, as MacDon ...

. The main hall has tiered seating for around 600 people. SPACe is managed by

Lee Perkins Lee may refer to: Name Given name * Lee (given name), a given name in English Surname * Chinese surnames romanized as Li or Lee: ** Li (surname 李) or Lee (Hanzi ), a common Chinese surname ** Li (surname 利) or Lee (Hanzi ), a Chinese s ...

who was instrumental in the sporting development of the centre.

External links

* http://www.hackneysportscentre.com Basketball venues in England Sports venues in London Sport in the London Borough of Hackney Indoor arenas in London Hoxton {{London-sports-venue-stub