The book's editors spent nine years going through and copying files, interviewing veteran figures in the sports community, and gathering the key people's stories.

Only 2,500 copies of The Quest for Gold have been printed, with 500 hardback versions going to members of the sports community, and the rest available to the public in paperback format.

It cost $400,000 to publish the book, which is written in English. A Chinese version is expected to be released next year.

'Nothing has ever been published about the earlier years of Hong Kong sports,' said Dr Julian Chang, who co-edited the book with Dr S. F. Lam, former medical adviser to the Amateur Sports Federation of Hong Kong.

'The people in the know and the documents are slowly fading away. This leaves a gap of what happened and how we got where we are today. As in life, we wanted to trace our roots and preserve the history for future generations.'

The book deals with events from 1947, when the Sports Federation was formed, to 1997, its 50th anniversary.

The editors realised they faced a mammoth task when they discovered the information was not readily available. The government didn't have it, nor did the central library.

The only way they could back-track was by reading the files kept by former Sports Federation chief, A. de O. Sales.

'Fortunately Mr Sales kept a very detailed archive which we sifted through and it was a very long process,' said Dr Chang, the current medical adviser to the Sports Federation.

'We had to put names to the people in the photographs and restore some of them. But it was fun going back in time and a very worthwhile effort.'