SINGAPORE – From the persistent referee whistles to shouts and squeals from recreational footballers, The Cage’s seven football pitches have been the heart of Turf City for the past decade.

The sprawling 140ha Bukit Timah site – about the size of 200 football fields – also housed facilities for rugby, netball, softball and mountain biking – making it a hive of activity for families and people of all ages.

Today, however, it resembles a ghost town.

Almost all the tenants have left, told by the authorities to vacate by Dec 31, as Turf City has been marked for residential use, while the Land Transport Authority also plans to build a new MRT station on the Cross Island Line there.

Since 2019, tenants have been given two successive 18-month tenancy extensions to give them time to relocate.

Turf City is the site of the former Bukit Timah Turf Club racecourse, which operated from 1933 until it closed in 1999, when horse racing activities moved to Kranji.

The Cage, which also operates a futsal facility in Kallang, has found a new site in Harding Road in the Dempsey area, and this will open in February 2024. It is, however, about one-eighth the size of its previous 93,000 sq m Turf City premises, which also had room for paintball, archery, tennis, basketball and cricket.

The new Dempsey location does not have an 11-a-side pitch. Instead, there will be six five-a-side pitches, three padel courts and a cricket facility.

Co-owner Rajesh Mulani, 53, said that post-pandemic demand for his four 11-a-side fields at Turf City was good. They were fully booked from 5pm to 11pm on weekdays and the entire weekends from 8am to 11pm. The only sign of activity now is the ongoing dismantling works.

He said: “State land is always on a tenure, that is the reality. But the bummer is actually our success in creating sports momentum. The last two years... have been our all-time record years. We were more or less booked up throughout the year.

“In football alone, we had at least 30,000 players here every month. That’s a serious number of people who would come in to play the game. We are leaving behind a huge momentum.”

Mr Rajesh added: “Turf City, as a recreational sports venue, is unmatched in Singapore. Therein lies how big or how much it means to us from a sporting perspective. All the operators here were successful in building a place that had a very, very high utilisation of sports.

“That is gone now.”

Rainforest Sports Hub, another Turf City operator that had eight artificial pitches, including an 11-a-side football pitch, will no longer be offering a space for football at its new premises. It won a tender for a site adjacent to Haw Par Villa MRT station and will operate a facility for rugby.

Operations manager Angel Chan said: “Moving to Haw Par is thrilling for us and marks a new adventure, but what is sad, of course, is that the football players, our regular customers, will lose out. We hope they will find a place to continue and that we are able to tender another land meant for football.”

The Singapore Land Authority, Sport Singapore and Urban Redevelopment Authority on Dec 21 said the Government had made available more than 20 new sites through public tenders to provide additional relocation options for tenants. More than 75 per cent of Turf City tenants have found new places for their businesses ahead of the Dec 31 deadline.

To complement the strategies under its Sports Facilities Master Plan, SportSG said it aims to increase the network of sport and play spaces beyond the provision of public sport facilities. To do so, the national agency has been working closely with relevant agencies to identify sites that can be progressively tendered out for sports use, it added.

But the truth is that an all-in-one sports venue that facilitated as many people as Turf City did, and had the ease of access when it comes to booking its spaces, will be hard to come by, said Mr Tim Lambert, chief executive and founder of Centaurs Group.

His company has been at Turf City since 2003 and operated two full-sized rugby pitches, four netball courts, a 5km mountain bike and running trail, among other sports facilities.

Centaurs will now run its rugby and touch rugby programmes at the Singapore American School, while its netball activities will take place at Dulwich College.

Mr Lambert said: “Turf City’s size was important and it was home to a number of sports people, whether it was rugby, tennis or football. Lots of clubs and academies booked those facilities and there were many matches, tournaments and training sessions there.

“A regular community was established. If you can’t go back regularly to somewhere, people are going to constantly wonder where they will play next.

“And over time, they will disappear and not be regulars in that sport.”

Tanglin Academy, which has run junior tennis programmes for more than 5,000 players at its 15 full-sized courts and six mini courts at Turf City since 2012, is waiting to hear on a bid for land in Sherwood Road, also in Dempsey.

Owner and director Elvin Chee, 54, said that while it was able to hold regular tournaments in the past, that will no longer be a possibility.

Describing Turf City as a crucial location for budding tennis players in Singapore, he said: “All our clients are waiting to see if we can secure a new place. The truth is that we can’t serve everyone, and we will advise clients to go to other schools.

“Based on our current bid, the space will be able to house four full-sized courts. Clearly, that limits what we can do and how many we can serve. It’s a pity.”

Ms Joewind Han, 46, has been running Hanz Sports Academy since 2021 and has about 90 students. She moved the wushu school from Turf City to Raeburn Park near Kampong Bahru on Dec 19, and said she is paying 50 per cent more in rental.

She added: “Moving out affects business. There would be parents who don’t want to go beyond the Turf City area, perhaps because they live around there. I have already lost about 10 students.”

For national touch rugby player Jazreel Tan and former media director of Touch Singapore Rachel Tang, it has been an emotional goodbye to a place they have been going to for over a decade.

Calling the closure a “massive loss”, Ms Tan, 34, said: “Turf City is where I spent my growing years playing touch, have many fond memories and shared experiences.”

Ms Tang, 30, added: “It was not just home to touch but a ton of sports who use the field and surrounding area daily. There aren’t that many similar, big open spaces for sports in Singapore, and to have a centralised place for multiple sports is important.”