A confession; I was something of a Commonwealth Games cynic.
You know, one of those who thought “The Friendly Games” was a euphemism for “not really very good Games”. Who thought the only way that Britain could cling on to the ideals of Empire was to invite all those nations we lost to a competition where we could lose to them all over again.
I’m still sort of mystified at Artistic Gymnastics. I’m not overly enamoured with Lawn Bowls as a sporting spectacle. A weekend at the shooting at Barry Buddon might have given me a headache but for the free earplugs, and I’m still wondering why they only use the “magic dust” targets for the clay shooting in the finals, as they make the sport a live spectacle for those without 20-20 vision.
Finally, in a professional capacity which will be of little interest to you as punters, I’ve never been at a major sporting event more difficult to get into. I’ve walked more at the Commonwealth Games than at any golf tournament I’ve ever been at, easily.
Yet I find myself enthused with the brazen zeal of a convert. The Commies are great fun. And like most converts, I now despise and loath my former fellows among the cynics and cringers who sneer at this unique and unashamedly joyous sporting party.
Most of these cynics and cringers, I find, are from the mujahideen of Scottish sport, those who can only tolerate soccer, maybe one other sport usually golf and regard the rest as “irrelevant”.
Irrelevant to what, exactly? Well, these are the people who are obsessed with soccer’s sociological standing within the Scottish psyche. You know, “the people’s game” and all that, no matter how much the clubs demand in obscene amounts at the gate.
Soccer is, they say, the only game that has any sort of “emotional investment” from the masses, even though that emotional investment often manifests itself in the sort of odious tribal rancour that should have no place in a modern civilised society.
This all notwithstanding, I get it. Although not a soccer enthusiast, I have no problem with it being the dominant and most popular sport. The people have clearly spoken. No argument.
I also, just about, accept the deluge of soccer for 10 months of the year, 11 months when there’s a World Cup or Euro. There is a massive industry of soccer news, for an apparently obsessed public that will not be sated, so much so that for the majority of the year BBC Radio Scotland becomes an almost endless sewing bee about the very minutiae of the game. Lots of people must listen to this, or they wouldn’t do it week after week.
Yet for a few weeks in the spring, when the 6 Nations is on, or for a couple of weeks every other year for the Olympics and the Commies, if other, less obsessively followed sports get a spotlight briefly waved their way, who could possibly object?
Why is it that soccer-onlys squeal like spoilt brats furious that someone else gets attention, however momentarily? With masses of football coverage continuing throughout even the close-season, it’s not like they’re missing out, or even slightly under-represented, or being disrespected by media turning their attention to something else for a comparative nanosecond.
And what kind of mentality is it that demands that the likes of Artistic Gymnastics or Lawn Bowls should be entirely shut out of media attention, and treated with derision, just because they doesn’t have the smothering spread of popularity and “social significance” that soccer does?
These sports get next to no coverage. Yet these deriders are seriously suggesting they get even less? It’s perverse.
The Commies have been a delight. They are what sport is meant to be, a harmless, entertaining diversion. It doesn’t matter a jot that most of us won’t sustain an interest in some of the disciplines beyond next week. Emotional investment is overrated it’s supposed to be about pleasure.
There’s no competition to suggest other sports are better than football. They lost the argument at the box office long ago. They may have even lost any sociological discussion, if we really have to bother with that pseudo-intellectual claptrap.
A brief moment in the limelight for the minor sports is a tiny price, and one soccer is easily able to afford.