The club is still central London’s largest gym, health and wellbeing centre, with nearly 4000 members, however, it is expected to cease trading on 7 February 2025 after it was sold to real estate developer Criterion Capital.
The Save the Central YMCA campaign group has called for a six-month pause in its planned closure.
After basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith in 1891 at Springfield YMCA, Massachusetts – the game quickly spread across the world through the YMCA movement.
The original Central YMCA building opened in 1912, and its men’s basketball team represented GB at an exhibition basketball tournament at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games, with the team winning all three of its games.
In 1936, The Amateur Basketball Association of England and Wales – the EBBA (the predecessor to Basketball England) was founded at a meeting at the facility.
English Basketball Fellowship committee member Jennifer Collins called the ‘Y’ London’s home of basketball.
Collins played for the women’s team based there, the London Central YMCA Bobcats, in the early 70s, and became the team’s secretary when it entered the National Basketball League in 1975.
“There is a lot of basketball history at the YMCA,” said Collins.
“The Bobcats were formed in 1973, when several of us left Southgate basketball club to start a new team at Central YMCA. One of our players, Kath Collins, her husband, Vic, was playing for the YMCA’s men’s team in the first season of the newly formed men’s national league.
“We were first coached by Dennis Wilkinson and then by John Collins. The team was very successful and grew fast and the YMCA soon became central London’s home of basketball. I was also chair of the successful London Ladies League at the time, with Patricia Fairclough OBE as one of my divisional secretaries – we had our meetings at the facility.”
Current Basketball England Board Member Sadie Mason MBE, who played for the Bobcats from 1978-1992, called the news ‘very sad’.
“I joined the YMCA’s Saturday morning junior basketball programme aged 14 in 1978. I remember watching Jenny play against the likes of Southgate and teams from Newcastle and Turnford Tigers. I also worked at the Y as a junior basketball coach for several years on a Saturday morning, alongside Sam Stiller, England’s youngest capped senior player at 15, who pretty much spent all his spare time there perfecting his trademark three-point shot.”
Mason also remembers playing against the famous Sheffield Hatters, including matching up against Hatters’ matriarch Betty Codona OBE, and her daughters, Lorraine Gayle and Vanessa Ellis, and venturing into European basketball competition with the Bobcats, playing in FIBA’s Ronchetti Cup.
“It was certainly a community hub for basketball, and an important focus point for London’s LGBTQ+ scene. It will be a shame if it is lost,” said Mason.
The current sports hall still has a basketball hoop, which is used by local schools for coached basketball activity.
Save the Central YMCA is requesting all parties to come together to enable a six-month period during which the Club will remain open and a rescue plan can be developed that meets the ambitions of all stakeholders.
“We believe the best way forward is to bring all relevant parties to the table to agree a pause in the planned closure,” said campaign spokesman David Bieda.
“We hope Criterion Capital, its founder and CEO Asif Aziz, and the other members of the Aziz family who lead the business, recognise that they have not simply acquired another chunk of real estate.
“They have acquired one of the most important community facilities in the West End, which since 1911 has touched the lives of tens of thousands of people, numerous schools, dozens of community organisations and a major hospital.
“Were Criterion Capital to do something unusual and use their expertise to help the Central YMCA Club continue in a financially viable form, they would become London heroes.
“I am confident that this action would be welcomed by our local Members of Parliament, Camden and Westminster Councils, not to mention the tens of thousands of users for whom the Central YMCA Club is more than just a gym.
“Where there is a will, there is a way.”
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