Friday night as MPs voted 20 to 17 to give its trustees more power.

The 1995 National Sports Centre Trustees Amendment Act, which vests the Centre in the seven-member board of trustees and gives it the authority to issue bonds for fundraising purposes, split the House of Assembly down the middle.

While MPs from the United Bermuda Party voted unanimously to approve the legislation, furious PLP members attacked the Government's plans to turn over development and management of the National Stadium to the board.

Complaining they had never been given a copy of the development plans, they charged that they didn't even know what they were being asked to approve.

And Progressive Labour Party MP Mr. Nelson Bascome , the Shadow Minister for Youth Development and Sport, said the current Prospect site was picked before the return of the Base lands, saying: "We didn't have anywhere else to develop -- we now have the Base lands.'' He added that Bermuda's economy was now very fragile and that sports tourism was a growing market sector that could be exploited.

"We have to think before we develop -- we have to look at all the options available. We have to ask the community and ask the sports bodies before we decide what to do.'' Opposition Leader Mr. Frederick Wade said: "It's contemptuous of the Government to give away land to some trustees and not even show us the plans.'' And he told the House of Assembly that Youth and Sport Minister Tim Smith could never take proposals in that form to a board of directors.

"It's that kind of fool planning which goes on all the time,'' he said.

He had been asking for the plans for the National Stadium to be placed before the House for six months.

And he said it appeared the Government was trying to put "all its eggs in one basket'' by promoting the Prospect site as a multi-use base for several sports.

He said: "We have the bigger high school coming there and other schools in the area could use that site for their sports facilities.

"But we should think what we could do at the other ends of the Island. We wish to see something comprehensive provided for our young people.'' He warned, too, that sport was one of the things which allowed youngsters to let off steam and kept the lid on simmering tensions.

He said: "I go to soccer matches at least once a week and mix and talk with young people. I know that if it wasn't for the soccer programme, this Country would be in deep trouble -- more trouble than it's in now.'' Former Premier Sir John Swan (UBP) told the House that it was a dream that Bermuda, like other developed countries, should be able to boast of a national home for sport.

And he insisted that the logical place was in the Prospect area and the best way to speed up the development was by appointing trustees with experience in finance, sport and management.

Sir John added that Police Headquarters -- currently lying between the new school site and the stadium area -- could be moved.

He said: "If we remove the Police from there, then the school and sports complex will be like one big campus.

Mr. Leon (Jimmy) Williams (PLP) said the impact of the new plans for the Stadium would have a huge impact on Devonshire Colts FC, whose current ground would be swallowed up as part of the redevelopment plans.

He said: "A group from the Devonshire Colts demonstrated this afternoon and I think we should listen very carefully to them.'' He added that the work would require demolition of houses and the removal of trees while farmland would be turned into car parks.

Mr. Williams said: "It's not going to enhance the Devonshire and Pembroke areas.'' But Mr. Harry Soares (UBP) accused the PLP of opposing Government plans for the sake of it.

And he said: "Everything looks easy for people who have never tried to do it.

"We have to work within the economic restraints of the times. There just isn't enough money to do everything we want to do. We should be on the touchlines cheering the trustees on.'' He added Devonshire Colts were given their current home by the Government in the short term.

"There was never any commitment made, either verbally or in writing,'' he said.

But Ms Renee Webb (PLP) said the Country did not have a National Stadium, just "some grass and some bleachers''.

Sir John Swan had been Premier for 13 years and the UBP had held power for 30 years and a National Stadium had still not taken shape.

"If his Government had been as serious as they say they are we would have a National Stadium by now,'' she said.

And she drew a comparison between the construction of the new Westgate prison and the slow progress on the stadium.

MPs call for stadium plans Ms Webb said: "Making sure our young people were incarcerated was a priority, so we have a first-class facility.'' Government had failed to throw its weight behind youth development, saying athletes of promise had to seek training elsewhere.

She added that the Caribbean was criticised "all the time,'' but countries like Jamaica had several stadiums and competed at world level.

And she told the House she had been embarrassed taking foreign visitors to the National Stadium, saying she would "rather have kidney failure'' than use the "awful, dirty and disgusting'' portable toilets.

Dr. Ewart Brown (PLP) said the board of trustees of the National Sports Centre was formed because "Government found itself paralysed and unable to move the agenda''.

"It was perishing, so somebody came up with another public relations exercise. But Bermuda is the number-one jailer in the universe because that's where the commitment is.'' He added that Sir John Swan had said that the new facilities would be mostly used by young black people.

"Is there any connection between that and the fact that we don't have it?'' he asked.

For his part, the Rev. Trevor Woolridge (PLP) said Government should be ashamed for waiting so long to complete the Stadium.

"They have to go to the Bermudian people in an embarrassed state and explain why we don't already have one,'' he said. "On this side of the House, we already know of (the UBP's) failings. The lack of UBP regard for the young people of this Country has been demonstrated in this area alone.'' Saying that "prisons are not made up of athletes and sportsmen,'' Premier David Saul (UBP) claimed that "a National Sports Centre per se is not an answer for everything.'' Nonetheless, he added, Government has been "using taxpayers' money for the past 20 years'' to promote sports on the Island.

Newly appointed Environment Minister Pamela Gordon (UBP) called on her intimate knowledge of the issue as a former Youth and Sport Minister to answer critics of the bill.

"I feel that I have some responsibility (for the Centre), and accountability that the current Minister shouldn't have to shoulder.'' Referring to Mr. Woolridge's suggestion that Government had abrogated its responsibility to youth, she said that "nothing could be further from the truth,'' noting that many issues, including the education reform that will cost the Government $100 million, have periodically delayed the Centre.

"In previous years,'' Ms Gordon said, "it would have been unheard of for that kind of money to be put into the public school system. In that light, the deferral (of the National Sports Centre) is not only reasonable but appropriate.'' Ms Gordon said she was "very upset'' by the Devonshire Colts demonstration, saying that Government had negotiated with the sports club "in good faith'' and had even tried to find it alternate facilities.

"I find it very upsetting to see the kind of major misrepresenation and blatant dishonesty that I saw here today,'' Ms Gordon said in reference to club officials.

Mr. Maxwell Burgess (UBP), another former Youth and Sport Minister, echoed Dr.

Saul's comments that a National Stadium was no panacea for crime.

"America has more stadiums than any other country, and it hasn't stopped drugs and crime.'' Nonetheless, he added: "It's about time that we commit ourselves to a National Stadium.'' And he praised, as a former sports club executive, the Devonshire Colts for their "wholesomeness''.

"I would do nothing to see them disadvantaged,'' he said, "but on balance we must find a way to encourage their good work on the one hand and meet our national commitments on the other.'' While he praised Ms Gordon's address for the light it shed on the issue, Mr.

Eugene Cox (PLP) nonetheless said she was being somewhat naive by asking the Opposition to "please, share our vision''.

"She is,'' he said, "being unrealistic in asking us to accept a plan that hasn't been completed. I can accept her apology for why the Stadium isn't done, but I can't commit to a plan that I haven't yet seen.'' Technology and Information Minister John Barritt (UBP) pointed to the "success'' that the Corporation of Hamilton has had in dealing with its parking problems after passage of an amendment to the Municipalities Act.

"We don't,'' he said, "have the licence to print money, but we do have examples of what this type of legislation can accomplish.''