EUROSCOPE. Great Games do not a country make

On Tuesday evening, with less than a month and a half to go to Scotland’s referendum on whether to remain in the UK, Alex Salmond, leader of the pro-independence Scottish Nationalist Party, and Alistair Darling, the former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer who heads the “Better Together Campaign”, took to a Glasgow stage to verbally thrash matters out.

Covering topics which ranged from an independent Scotland’s currency to which side of the road it might drive on, the intense, often angry debate reignited the passion of the referendum countdown after the brief respite brought by the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow: over the ten day period of the Games, politicians largely lived up to their promise to keep off the topic of independence.

On a sporting level the Commonwealth Games proved a Scottish success story: Scotland leapfrogged from 10th place in the 2010 New Delhi Games to 4th place, with 19 gold medals – an impressive tally for a country of 5.2 million, even if some of that success was attributed to Scotland’s decision to include judo, in which it won six golds. (India finished fifth, with 15 golds, and 64 medals overall.)

However, it was on other levels that the Glasgow Games stood out. Prince Imran, the president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, declared them the “best Games ever.” Plaudits flowed in from across the world. “Glasgow may well be looked upon as the city that saved a dying movement from itself,” wrote the Brisbane Times’ sports editor, Phil Lutton, arguing that the Games staged by Glasgow had accorded the Commonwealth Games a relevancy and sense of purpose they had lost in New Delhi.

While India finished second (after Australia) in the league table in 2010, its sporting success was to take second place in global memory to the epic corruption surrounding the event poor infrastructure; and a lack of public engagement.

Even aside from these headline-grabbing issues, there are noteworthy differences between the Games of 2010 and 2014. For one thing, the Glasgow Games cost a fraction of those in New Delhi: $970 million against $4.1 billion (16 times the initial budget) in 2010.

Some fundamental differences in approach accounted for the sharply contrasting games, argues Boria Majumdar, author of Sellotape Legacy: Delhi and the Commonwealth Games , and senior research fellow at the University of Central Lancashire, who also attended the games in Glasgow.

Glasgow was willing to use infrastructure and stadia already in place, in contrast to New Delhi’s decision to build vastly expensive new stadia with little regard for what would happen to them in the future. “The problem with New Delhi was that we invested huge amounts in stadiums that are now complete white elephants,” he says with reference to the centre-piece structure: the vastly expensive Jawaharlal Nehru stadium.

“In the last couple of years it has been used a handful of times and there is no real plan for how it will be used in the future.” By contrast, Glasgow’s arena for field events, together with a velodrome, were opened in 2012 and had already been used for a number of events before the Games. The city is already set to host a number of events in the future. “There is absolutely no doubt that the legacy of New Delhi was negative, while that of Glasgow, whose whole idea was to integrate sporting facilities into the city, and where the stadiums were ready years before, was positive,” says Majumdar.

The decision to use venues in other cities (diving events took place in Edinburgh) not only ensured existing infrastructure was used (the Edinburgh pool has been used for two previous Commonwealth Games) but also helped spread Games-fever beyond just Glasgow.

Such a strategy — for example, basing the boxing events in Haryana, home to the successful Bhiwani Boxing Club — could have helped New Delhi give a sense of ownership over the games to other parts of the country, argues Majumdar. “It wasn’t India’s Games, it was Delhi’s Games.”

Glasgow also used the opportunity afforded by the Games to kick-start the regeneration of its infamous East End — one of the most deprived areas in the UK — in a way that generally took the people of the city with it.

With a few exceptions, the remodelling went ahead smoothly (plans to demolish a set of ugly tower blocks as part of the opening ceremony were dropped following public criticism), and the buzzing, friendly atmosphere that many visitors spoke of in the city during the ten days testified to the way the city and its population had embraced the sporting event.

Glasgow also seemed to avoid the trap of trying to outdo the 2012 London Olympics, focusing instead on injecting good-hearted, gently self-mocking humour into the festivities: a tongue-in-cheek opening ceremony featured guest appearances by ‘Nessie’, the Loch Ness monster, and a set of dancing tea cakes.

Of course, the sporting legacy of the Glasgow Games will only be gauged over time. Majumdar points to the lack of any sporting legacy from the 2010 Games. “India has failed its sportsman and failed to bring in a sporting system,” he says. “Every success story is still due to individual effort.”

How much importance should we accord the Commonwealth Games? It would be easy to write them off as unimportant, given their failure to attract some of the big names of the Olympics (Usain Bolt took part only in the 4 x 100 relay in Glasgow and didn’t take participate at all in Delhi).

They have a tendency to be seen by rest of world as a curious throwback to history. But they do matter. Glasgow shows how the Games can be used to showcase a city and country without huge expense. Glaswegians certainly hope their successful hosting of the Games will help their city cast off its somewhat insalubrious global reputation.

At the same time, the importance of the Games should not be exaggerated. If supporters of the “Yes” campaign for independence had hoped to garner extra support from the enthusiasm generated by the Games they seem likely to be disappointed.

A poll done conducted last weekend for the Mail on Sunday recorded a one-percentage point drop in support for the “Yes” campaign, down to 40 percent. 81 percent of those polled said the Games made no difference to their voting intention. “The referendum isn’t about identity,” says John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and author of the “WhatScotlandthinks” blog. “If it were about identity then they would have voted yes years ago.”

Instead, gritty economic issues, especially those relating to the financial benefits (or otherwise) independence may bring, seem set to be the determining factors when Scotland votes on September 18.

COMMENT NOW