For the Glory of Sport

For The Glory Of Sport The story of the Commonwealth Games from 1930 to 2014 By Bob Phillips Author€s Note The Commonwealth Games have always been particularly close to my heart in a lifetime of a passionate interest in sport. I saw them for the first time as a teenage fan in Cardiff in 1958 € when they were still known as the British Empire and Commonwealth Games € and was captivated then by the marvellous deeds of the athletes on a cinder track fitted tightly round the hallowed turf of the celebrated Arms Park rugby-football ground. Lithe and lightning-fast sprinters from the Caribbean islands, rugged middle-distance and long-distance runners from Australia and New Zealand, a gloriously fluent quarter-miler from India, jumpers and throwers from what then seemed such exotic far-flung corners of the globe as Fiji, North Borneo and Singapore € it was all intensely exciting and laid the foundations for what would be for me many more such delightful adventures to come as a professional journalist and broadcaster. Even so, there were only 35 countries competing at those Games of more than half-a-century ago. In Glasgow this year there will be twice that number. The Games have grown out of all recognition, but in the process of so doing they have managed to maintain an intimacy € even a coziness, if you like € which so many of the other forms of international sport have long since shunned in the relentless interests of commercialism. This is a favoured theme of mine which you will find recurring throughout this history of the Commonwealth Games € call me old-fashioned, if you wish, but there are inherent qualities of fair play, of sportsmanship, of comradely competition among members of a vastly extended but affectionate family, which have survived over more than 80 years at these Games, though not entirely unscathed, and they are not widely in evidence elsewhere these days. One of the numerous other Commonwealth Games gatherings which I attended was also in Scotland € in Edinburgh in 1986 € and there, sadly, political pressures forced more than half of the competing countries to withdraw, and the closing day was a dismal affair as we all wondered whether there ever would be another such Games. Happily, that crisis was resolved and the Games restored, though not entirely unblemished. The most recent in the series € in India in 2010 € were hailed at their finish by the governing hierarchies of sport as yet another triumph, but that tends to be a knee-jerk reaction after every major sporting event. With sponsors to appease maybe they would say that, wouldn•t they? The reality was that many of the best athletes stayed away for various reasons, mostly of a mercenary nature, and the majority of the track and field events were rather humdrum. Though other sports among the wide range on the Commonwealth Games schedule mainly lived up to expectations, it was the quality of the athletics by which the Games were judged € just as at the Olympics € and on that occasion four years ago this was found wanting. It did not help matters, too, that half- a-dozen or so athletes were caught out either then or soon after for drug-taking. Assuredly, it will be a different story in Glasgow, and there are graphic examples from the mists of historic time to provide inspiration, though in all probability not a single competitor in Glasgow in 2014 will be aware of these € and nor, for that matter, will be any of the tens of thousands of spectators, or even all but a very few of the most studious athletics enthusiasts. A century and a decade ago the finest distance-runner in the World, Alfred Shrubb, came to Glasgow intent on setting a new record for two miles and succeeded admirably on the afternoon of 11 June 1904, beating the time which he himself had achieved the previous year. Unfortunately, his deed went largely unnoticed, as was dourly reported by the special correspondent for the ‚Glasgow Heraldƒ: ‚By their indifference the Glasgow public missed the treat of a lifetime on Saturday afternoon. No doubt, had they been assured that Shrubb would lower his own time for two miles, Ibrox Park would have been taxed to its utmost; for, after all, the Glasgow public are fond of sensational sportƒ. Shrubb, undeterred, broke the four miles record in Glasgow two days later and then returned to the city in unseasonal November and ran the furthest distance ever in an hour, breaking six other records en route. It would be rather too much to expect ‚sensational sportƒ in such abundance in Glasgow this summer, but what is already guaranteed € judging by the advance ticket sales € is that at all the Games venues in and around the city there will be no lack of folk ready and eager for some ‚treats of a lifetimeƒ. Affirming the fair play spirit more than 80 years on, but what does the future hold for the •Friendly Games‚? •To promote a unique, friendly, world class Commonwealth Games and to develop sport for the benefit of the people, the nations and the territories of the Commonwealth and thereby strengthen the Commonwealth‚ ƒ the vision of the Commonwealth Games Federation as expressed in its constitution. It was in 1930 that the member-countries of what was then the British Empire first came together in Hamilton, Ontario, in the interests of co-ordinated sporting competition, and the idea of their so doing had been proposed almost 40 years earlier than that. Now, in 2014, it is something of a marvel that the Commonwealth Games exist at all. Having taken an inordinately long time to be created in the first place, they have been sustained when they ought, in any realistic assessment, to have been swept brutally away by a torrent of political and economic issues and an increasingly demanding schedule of major Championships (Olympic, World, European) as sport has become progressively more professionalised. Their failure has been anticipated more than once, and yet they still find a place in the sporting calendar and in the hearts and minds of the thronging crowds which have attended, to say nothing of the competitors, officials, volunteers, politicians and € not least in importance in this commercialised day and age € financial sponsors. This year these resilient Commonwealth Games take place in Scotland for the third time since 1970, and that in itself is a particular cause for celebration considering that it was in Scotland 28 years ago that they almost foundered. It was an astonishing achievement that these Games should even have begun at all, as they did in the midst of a Worldwide economic depression, and their realisation was not helped by the fact that those in charge of English sport, in their self-importance, had shown no great enthusiasm for the original proposal. Yet they soon came round to the idea of supporting the venture and sent a team to the inaugural Games of 1930 which was almost as large as that of the Canadian hosts. Then, when the delegates from the various interested countries met at the 1932 Olympics to confirm the venue for the second Empire Games in 1934, and courageously concluded that their original choice of South Africa would have to be changed because of that country•s oppressive policy of apartheid, it was the English authorities who offered their services as hosts. Another major difficulty to be encountered in 1938, and again in 1950 after wartime disruption, was the great expense of the long journeys to Australia and New Zealand for the vast majority of the competing countries. Then, even as the British Empire was crumbling and political obligations were being severely re-aligned, there came what can now be seen as a Golden Era for these Games. From 1954, when it was back to Canada and the year of Bannister and Landy•s ‚Miracle Mileƒ, to 1958 and the resplendence of the famed Cardiff Arms Park rugby-football ground, and at further celebrations through to 1982 in Australia, Jamaica, Scotland, New Zealand, Canada and again Australia, the Games flourished. New cultures, new influences and a new and heady independence for so many of the members of the ‚oldƒ Empire ought really to have dictated otherwise, but the Games pragmatically moved with the times to accommodate a changing World. More than merely as a symbolic gesture, the title was regularly altered from ‚British Empire Gamesƒ, as it had been from 1930 to 1950, to ‚British Empire & Commonwealth Gamesƒ, as it became from 1954 to 1966, and was further significantly modified to ‚British Commonwealth Gamesƒ in 1970 and 1974, and then simply to ‚Commonwealth Gamesƒ from 1978 onwards. South Africa had taken its leave of the Commonwealth after 1958, besmirched by that scourge of apartheid, but still exercised an unhealthy external influence to the extent that throughout the 1970s and 1980s each Games in succession was threatened with a boycott by the countries of Asia, the Caribbean and Central Africa, and this came to reality in Edinburgh in 1986. Another proposed South African rugby-football tour of New Zealand, together with the British Government•s refusal in response to impose economic sanctions, fired up a host of teams to withdraw, and a grey and windswept midsummer at the Meadowbank athletics stadium, playing gloomy host to what was little more than a match between the Home Countries, Canada and Oceania, was discouraging for all € even if athletes such as Steve Cram, Rob de Castella, Lisa Martin, Daley Thompson and a certain Ben Johnson did produce World-class performances in spite of everything.

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