dunroving

Now that the CG are winding down (closing ceremony is on telly tonight at 9:00), I was wondering what people have thought of it.

I am currently watching Adam Gemili (100M sprint sensation) being interviewed in the BBC studios and the rain is streaming down the windows. Overall, though, the weather has been excellent except for a couple of days in the athletics stadium.

I attended the rugby 7's and the mountain biking and have been following the media coverage and watching about 6-8 hours of televised sport every day. My take on the whole thing are ...

Positives:
The crowd support and attitude. The number of spectators has been amazing, and from my experience and what I have seen on telly, the crowd has been in great humour. Worries that English athletes would be booed or not supported were unfounded - I think the Scottish crowd cheered on the English athletes as much as the Scottish (except when the English athlete was competing against the Scottish athlete, of course!)

TV and radio coverage - the BBC had coverage on BBC1, BBC2 and BBC3, and several dedicated red button channels. Keeping track of a particular sport sometimes felt like musical chairs because they kept switching from one channel to the next, but this was a minimal problem.

Minor negatives:
Some of the organisation was pretty poor, especially the transport in the first weekend. We were stuck in a queue to switch from the train to the subway for the best part of an hour. As above, however, the spectators took it very good-naturedly - no-one tried to cut in the line and no real grumbles.

The food - almost impossible to buy health food, which I found ironic considering the healthy benefits of sport. Burgers, foot-long hot dogs, pulled pork sandwiches.

Considering the extremely congenial attitude throughout and the overall success of the Games, I wonder whether some people will reconsider the need to separate from the rest of the UK. There may be no effect on the referendum at all, but it struck me that the Games seemed to emphasize the commonalties between Scotland and the other Home nations. Salmond may end up with egg on his face.

[On a side note, a friend said he heard Salmond welcome everyone in his opening ceremony speech, "even the English", but I don't recall him saying this, nor did I see anything about this in the news coverage. Did anyone else hear this?]

Made a nice change not to have wall-to-wall coverage of the referendum talking heads, though I am sure it will resume this week.

Lorac05

I only watched it on TV and thought the crowds were amazing. Loved how the crowd were cheering for all home nations participants - felt like a home games for all of them.

I enjoyed the full coverage but was also felt that sometimes trying to keep track of where an event was being shown was aggravating - especially if you wanted to record it.

Overall it appears to have been a success and I think Glasgow can be proud of what they showed to the world

It was also nice to see the English beat the Aussies into second place on the medal table And Scotland also had their best ever performance

chris955

I thoroughly enjoyed it, the coverage was good, everyone seemed to have fun and there appeared to be a great atmosphere and yes it was nice to see Austrlia get pushed into second behind England

LukeandJo

Great coverage, great sporting action, great result for England!!

Glasgow looked fantastic and the sporting venues looked in superb condition...

Vexcore

It was ok, but i just think it's a waste of time and money,

Roll on the Olympics or world cup or EU CUP.

Big main events, i just personally think the 'Commonwealth' games is not a main event, well not a big deal anyway.

But was nice sitting down legs up, avin a cuppa.

Editha

I'm not interested in sport and I think that sport combined with nationalism, as in the Olympics or Commonwealth Games is pernicious and a thoroughly bad thing.

All the Commonwealth Games has meant to me is that there is nothing worth watching on TV.

chris955

Yes it will only be a good thing for Glasgow, it did look fantastic. As you say an absolutely brilliant result for England and bodes well for the future.

dunroving

I read a few comments in the TV guide from people who don't like sport and I can see the reason why BBC-watchers would be miffed (though BBC4 and every other channel were unaffected).

TBH, I think the Commonwealth Games were unique in the lack of nationalism. Plenty of national pride (patriotism), but none of the jingoistic fervour usually associated with nationalists. The Scottish spectators were even cheering the English, and stood during the UK national anthem. That speaks volumes.

chris955

I saw no obvious nationalism, plenty of patriotism which is a good thing. Overt, in your face nationalism was one of the things that made us leave Australia.

Editha

Having national sports teams is actually an expression of nationalism, not patriotism. The games are by their nature an expression of nationalism.

As to whether patriotism is a good thing or not, that is moot.

chris955

Oh well, its impossible to please everyone

dunroving

Well, having spent hours every day over the period of the Games either watching in person or on TV, and having followed the media coverage, I really think the recent CG was devoid of nationalistic fervour. They nicknamed them the "Friendly Games" and I have to agree that was the overwhelming feeling I got from them.

Sure, the locals in the crowd enjoyed singing Flower of Scotland when the Scots athletes won gold (especially the bit about Edward's army), but then you also had the whole of Ibrox singing along to "Sweet Caroline", and the support for Uganda and Sri Lanka at the rugby 7's from the whole 40,000 crowd at Ibrox Park was a sight to behold. Absolutely amazing family fun.

Nationalism, patriotism, maybe we are disagreeing on semantics, but I saw almost entirely positive outcomes from the Games, in contrast to what went before (Scottish Independence vitriol for the past 18 months) and which will likely resume with tonight's debate on STV. Yawn.