Shepheard’s Popular Street Football Square

The Cairo fire of 26 January 1925 was not merciful to the venerable Shepheard Hotel on Republic Street, formerly Ibrahim Pasha Street. In fact, it was especially harsh on it.

The fire completely and devastatingly destroyed the hotel, which, together with its rear garden, occupied most of the large rectangle extending lengthwise along Republic Street, running parallel at the back with Haret El-Kobara Street and extending across the two widths to Alfy and Waked streets.

Removing what remained of the hotel’s ruins left a large, level plot of vacant land that later became known as “Shepheard Land.” The decision not to rebuild the hotel and instead establish another hotel with the same name overlooking the Nile next to Semiramis Hotel contributed to this. That is indeed what happened, and it also marked the movement of tourism activities and services from the Azbakeya area to Tahrir.

Shepheard Land provided the children of nearby popular neighborhoods, particularly Azbakeya, Bab El-Shaaria, Bulaq, and Abdeen, with a place to play “sock ball,” the most popular game among the children of these neighborhoods. It required only a ball made from pieces of sponge compressed into a sock to give it a spherical shape, with tight threads wrapped around it to maintain the shape, and four stones to mark the goals.

The square could accommodate many match fields for all age groups, without problems arising from any team lacking a field. The largest and most crowded matches were those involving young people from nearby neighborhoods, some of which were organized as leagues for neighborhood youth.

The space, whose two sides overlooking Republic and Alfy streets were surrounded by the Egyptian Advertising Company’s large billboards for products and cinemas, hosted both the Indian circus and the Russian circus when they visited Cairo to perform there.

The construction of a petrol station belonging to the Cooperation Petroleum Company on part of the land at the corner of Republic and Alfy streets at the beginning of the 1960s was the first sign that construction had begun on the land and that its role as a popular football square was receding. This was followed by the construction of the National Insurance Authority building, Al-Thawra Building, and several headquarters for banks and companies, as well as a large garage.

As for the side overlooking Republic Street, which was the hotel’s permanent façade and appeared in every surviving old photograph of the hotel, construction there was delayed until the second decade of the twenty-first century. The new Central Bank is one of the most prominent buildings on this façade.

The attached old photographs of the hotel establish the length of the façade along Republic Street. It shares the view with a building, still standing today at the far right of the picture, dating from the 1940s. It survived the fire because it was separated from the hotel by Waked Street, and it also appears in the picture of the modern buildings on the same façade.