SOME still remember the circus elephants which graced the Kelvin Hall with their athleticism, but that carnival is over.

A further chapter in the arena's rich history concluded last weekend, when the final international athletics event appropriately signed off with a capacity crowd and record-breaking running.

With the new £113m Commonwealth Sports Arena in Dalmarnock confirmed as Glasgow's venue for major indoor track and field from next year, what will be among Europe's biggest and most adaptable venues already has continental and world indoor championship ambitions.

There will be further opportunity for nostalgic Kelvin Hall farewells from the athletics community. The Scottish Universities Championships will be staged there today [Sat 4] and the national senior championships a fortnight tomorrow.

It's hard to imagine any tears from those who have scaled the Eiger North wall that is lane five. Drawing that idiosyncratic lane left aspirants with a mountain to climb, and yet . . .

After the inaugural international event there, 24 years ago, on February 6, 1988, athletes were singing the track's praises. Before that, the prime indoor UK venue was a concrete track at RAF Cosford, near Wolverhampton, where sprinters had been known to sprinkle soap powder on the bends – proven, according to no less an authority than Olympic 100m bronze medallist and sport science professor, Peter Radford, to aid traction.

Linford Christie set Scottish all-comers records at 60 and 200 metres (6.67sec, 21.11) as Britain won that Dairy Crest international against France. In the final event he anchored a 4 x 200m quartet which broke the Commonwealth, British, and UK all-comers' record (1min 22.93sec).

He hinted at the Olympic medal which was to come later that year in Seoul when he was given the baton alongside Bruno Marie-Rose, but with the French world 200m record-holder commanding the inside. They ran much of the lap shoulder to shoulder, with Christie in lane two, before finally edging his rival by seven hundredths of a second.

It was a majestic run, but he was undoubtedly helped by the slight incline off the final bend, and the 200m indoors was eventually consigned to championship history because outside lanes confer unfair advantage.

Christie was ecstatic with the new track. "I could not have done that at Cosford," he told me. "Here the straights are longer, the bends less tight, and the banking less steep."

Until lane five was added. Before that I saw Raymond Hubbard, son of the Rangers' penalty ace, break the indoor world record for 30 miles during a 100-mile race organised by Sri Chinmoy. Competitors snatched brief sleeps on makeshift trackside cots, and sleeping bags on the ground.

But the crowd in that opening match were wide awake from the first gun. Troon's Brian Whittle won the first international event on the programme, breaking the Scottish 400m record with 47.03. Over the same distance, in an invitation race, American Butch Reynolds ran the second fastest time ever (45.20). Reynolds had woken that morning to learn that Thomas Schoenlebe of East Germany had lowered the world best from 45.41 to run ever. But Reynolds was disqualified for stepping out of his lane on this first outing on a banked 200m track.

When told, he was philosophical. "I like the time. I love the track," he said. "The atmosphere is unbelievable. The place is rocking. I'm sorry not to have lowered my pr [personal record], but it could have been worse. I might just have lost a world record as well." Later that year he had the consolation of breaking the world outdoor mark which had stood for 20 years.

Despite defeat, the French partied into the night at Glasgow City Chambers, with Marie-Rose and fellow sprinter Daniel Sangouma giving an improptu dance and piano recital on stage.

The venue was an instant hit, and the fifth lane was soon added to help bolster the European championship bid.

When it came, Tom McKean, newly returned from a disastrous Commonwealth Games in New Zealand, redeemed himself with a front-running European 800m title (1:46.22) to bring the house down. That time is still the Scottish all-comers' indoor best.

Colin Jackson famously was announced as a world record-breaker, and was already home when told after a review of the photo finish that he had "only" equalled the 60m hurdles mark. he promised he would soon break it, and did so within days.

But there were several other world bests as the arena was graced by a catalogue of Olympic and world champions. The Kelvin Hall put the city on the athletics map and a Who's Who of the world's best came to Glasgow.

They even included Carl Lewis, voted the greatest 20th century male athlete – but he was beaten by England's Jason Livingston.

Athletics was far from the only sport, however. Jim Watt beat Alfredo Pitalua to claim the world lightweight title there in 1979, and came back to defend successfully against Sean O'Grady. It has been home to the world badminton championships and world curling championships – invading pigeons were culled by a sniper to prevent them defecating on the ice and spoiling the run of the stones.

It has housed wartime barrage balloon manufacture, hosted RSNO Proms, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Kinks, Elton John, and Billy Graham evangelist crusades.

Yet it is appropriate that a universities event today will be one of the last athletics ones in the Kelvin Hall. Glasgow-educated Ian Borland, former Scottish 440 yards champion and 1930 Empire Games competitor levered the city into including a running track. The stockbroker and former secretary of the British Universities Sports Federation offered a substantial sum in trust, through The Herald, with the implicit threat that we would report how the money had been turned down if they did not accept. A Glasgow University sports bursary survives in his name.