As sport ramps up after the summer break, Simon Hunt argues that the Square Mile needs a major sports venue of its own – for the sake of the City of London's future.

Picture the scene: it has just gone 5:30pm on a sunny Thursday evening, and office workers look around for something to do. For the journalists at City AM, the options are the Oyster Shed, the Banker or the Walrus. In the Square Mile more broadly, it is the pub or home – little else is on offer.

Hunt writes that going to a British pub is one of his favourite pastimes, and that he prefers a lukewarm Kentish bitter to a Spanish lager even in 32-degree heat, such is his devotion to the cause. But even a watering-hole hobbyist, he admits, occasionally craves something different.

There are one or two alternatives around the City, such as venues used for team building activities like interactive darts or karaoke. But these are, at best, an acquired taste.

What the City could really do with, Hunt argues, is a proper sports venue – something to put the Square Mile on the sporting map that could bring together thousands of office workers all under one roof.

The stakes go beyond after-work entertainment. The Square Mile draws hundreds of thousands of workers on a weekday yet has fewer than 10,000 residents, and the City of London Corporation has made the resulting evening and weekend lull an explicit policy target: its 'Destination City' strategy, launched in 2023, aims to turn the Square Mile into a seven-day-a-week destination by attracting more leisure, culture and events to the area.

A missing gem in London's sporting offering

London itself has no shortage of major venues: there is Wembley, Wimbledon, Twickenham, the Olympic village and, of course, six Premier League clubs. London's biggest indoor arena, the 20,000-capacity O2, sits on the peninsula at North Greenwich. But set foot inside the City's walls and there is nothing. The nearest stadium to the Square Mile is Millwall's The Den – over two miles away and hardly walkable in any case, Hunt notes.

It was not always this way. Centuries ago, there was a flurry of sports and entertainment activity within the City's thick stone walls. Jousting was among the most popular pursuits, along with horse racing and tennis. Go back a thousand years and gladiatorial sport was in vogue, often taking place at the amphitheatre, traces of which can still be seen under the Guildhall.

Hunt is not calling for the return of jousting, gladiatorial death matches or the beheadings that were a popular spectator sport of yesteryear. But, he asks, can't we have something? The City is a dense place as it is – but space can be dug below ground if office space occupies the skies.

Any such scheme would also have to navigate London's planning politics, which have recently claimed one of the world's most high-profile venue proposals: the US group behind Las Vegas's Sphere scrapped its planned London counterpart in Stratford after the scheme was refused planning permission.

The foundations are there

The infrastructure to support a big venue already exists, Hunt points out: huge rail stations in the form of Liverpool Street, Cannon Street and London Bridge, as well as six tube lines, and dozens of restaurants and hotels too. The Elizabeth line, which calls at Farringdon and Liverpool Street, now links the City directly to the West End, Canary Wharf and Heathrow.

There is also plenty of space given over to conference venues, at which men in grey suits exchange leaflets and discuss the exciting collaboration opportunities they will never get round to. Wouldn't everyone have a much better time, he suggests, if those talks happened while watching top-quality athletes, rather than looking at their watches?

Rival financial districts already have more on offer. In La Defense, the financial district of Paris, is situated the Penitude Arena, the largest indoor multi-purpose arena in Europe. The 45,000-capacity venue hosted events during the 2024 Olympics and, aside from holding rugby games, will also host Celine Dion gigs in September.

The City of London, Hunt concludes, is in danger of falling behind. It is time to catch up and build a stadium in the Square Mile.