On your right, look for the low, wide building with a big glassy, triangular “gable” entrance and the Sport Aberdeen sign on the brick wall.
This was the Beach Leisure Centre... or, depending on when you last came, the place you learned to swim, the place you pretended you still swam, or the place you swore you’d “get back to next week.” It opened in 1989, after years of council talk going back to 1979 and construction starting in 1986. First came the centre itself on March 1st, then the pool followed four months later, on June 26th. Early on it was run by a company called Crossland Leisure, and later operated by Sport Aberdeen.
It was stitched right into its neighbor, the Beach Ballroom, and sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Linx Ice Arena-basically a whole little strip of “burn off the pies” options. Inside: a pool, a gym, and three proper flumes. The Tube was the big one-120 meters on inflatable rafts-plus the shorter, steeper Wipeout, and the 95-meter Pipeline.
But the story gets a little gritty. In 2011, a 12-year-old broke his ankle and shin after hitting the end wall of the Wipeout because there wasn’t enough water to slow him down. Sport Aberdeen was fined £8,000-about £12,000 today, roughly $15,000 USD-for the safety failure.
Then came the modern squeeze: rising energy costs shut the leisure pool in August 2022. And in April 2023, after the council cut Sport Aberdeen’s funding by £687,000 a year-around £750,000 today, roughly $950,000 USD-the centre closed for good. Not long after, it was cleared as part of the £150 million City Centre/Beach Masterplan. One more piece of everyday Aberdeen, gone with the tide.
