SINGAPORE - A stadium's price is negotiated and then its value must be extracted. It can be a temple, museum, hero factory and profit-maker. Inside it, the fantastic happens. A Pope might arrive, Coldplay calls the faithful and Ronaldo blesses goals.

In a stadium, marriage proposals happen and in 2015 a woman gave birth to a boy during a Major League Baseball game. So much comes alive. Remember your dad and the original National Stadium, the old one built of stone and Dollah Kassim's art, 60,000 squeezed in, the long walk in and the sound heard across the Causeway. Or at least that's how my colleagues tell it. The best days can't be exaggerated.