What Stoke Mandeville did already have was 35 years experience of organising and hosting national and international games. The sports stadium had been built in 1969 and a decade later the 'Olympic' village had opened. Guttmann speaking at that opening, had declared "We will build a sports stadium and an Olympic village so that the disabled athletes of the world will always have their own Olympic facilities here at Stoke Mandeville when other facilities are closed to them". But perhaps he hadn't actually anticipated this offer being taken up just five years later.