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| The Clyde Auditorium and the SSE Hydro were just two of the many venues across Glasgow and Scotland hosting sporting events for the 20th Commonwealth Games. |
I was lucky to go and see the badminton, squash, para-sport powerlifting and the athletics as far as events were concerned and ultimately the big one I went to was the Closing Ceremony which I was delighted to be at. But I'll start with the sporting events.
The first one I went to was the badminton which took place at the Emirates Arena in Dalmarnock. The first thing you notice about the Emirates Arena is how massive the venue is. It's absolutely huge. And although it wasn't the first time I was in that venue, I sensed how massive this venue really was. And it was absolutely incredible, especially with the badminton taking place there, because I recall seeing on the television beforehand that there was more than one badminton match taking place at the same time. But in my case when I went to see the badminton on the 27th July, there was only one match taking place and I remember it was in the evening. And that was a match between England and India.
The weekend of the 2nd and 3rd August, of which I like to call it the "super weekend" - it was full of events for the Saturday and Sunday. The first of those events was the para-sport powerlifting and I remember watching the English athlete Ali Jawad breaking the world record with one of his lifts and then he broke his own newly set world record - he broke the world record twice in one session which was absolutely extraordinary. It wasn't a sell out for that event, but the atmosphere was absolutely extraordinary and the first sign of this was when the Glasgow 2014 mascot Clyde appeared out of nowhere onto the stage and started singing and got the audience signing and dancing along. That was quite extraordinary to watch and very amusing and light hearted as well.
Later on that evening, there was the three of us - my brother, I and a friend. We went to the athletics at Hampden Park. It was absolutely incredible, because you got this sense that Hampden Park had transformed like magic from what was a football stadium into this athletics arena and you can tell the crowd were really up for it, even though it was raining and it was grey in the skies and the track was wet and that was a bit annoying.
I was a bit disappointed that night, because I didn't see much of Team Scotland prosper on the night which was a bit sad because I wanted to see some medals from my country. Having said that, we did see a certain Mr Bolt compete for Jamaica and he was very entertaining as always. He got the crowd going and surprise, surprise he succeeded yet again and Jamaica scored successfully once again in the athletics (I'm saying that in terms of medals). It was just an absolutely brilliant night for Jamaica. It was just a great night watching a variety of events like the triple jump, javelin, the relay finals and the long distance finals.
I remember we headed to Scotstoun for the squash for the Sunday of that "super weekend" and we (my brother and I) were a bit late for the start actually which was a bit frustrating and embarrassing - it was my fault, because I'd arrived a bit late into Glasgow from Fife and completely didn't get my facts right when it came to getting the right train to Scotstoun. Nonetheless, we got there and we stayed there for a good six hours I think, because there were a lot of final matches being played and we saw a variety of teams playing like Australia and England.
It was great to watch, because squash is one of these sports like badminton which is very fast paced and ruthless to an extent - I'm not implying that the athletes are necessarily ruthless. They are very good natured and have respect for each other, but the velocity of the sport is very fast (squash and badminton fit into that category). We saw a great mixture of competition taking place which was great and eye opening as well. There was a really good atmosphere around Scotstoun.
Afterwards, we rushed back into the city centre and my brother and I met our father and a friend of ours who came to join us for the closing ceremony for that evening. I remember getting a bit agitated, because our friend who was coming in from the west of the city was held up in the train delays heading into Glasgow city centre so I saw all these folk heading into the shuttle buses at Buchanan Bus Station and there I was sitting down in the station thinking, "oh my God we need to get away, because we are going to be late!" - I didn't shout this out in public, because I didn't want to cause any embarrassment.
Nonetheless, we all united and we boarded the shuttle bus and headed to Hampden Park. We arrived very early actually, we arrived around an hour before the start of the actual closing ceremony so I was very chuffed and relieved that we were in our seats before then.
I remember seeing all these tents all over the pitch and I was trying to find out at first what was going on (what were we going to expect?). Fast forward to nine o'clock then the closing ceremony took place and then suddenly I can see all these athletes running out of their tents with absolutely no hint of hesitation, running towards the stage and the stadium absolutely lit up in sound and light and it was just...everybody started going into song and everybody started getting all excited and all these saltires waved across the stadium.
It was a great start to the closing ceremony and it was quite a musical closing ceremony if I rightly remember - it was almost like being at a concert.
I remember notably HRH Prince Imran saying that the Commonwealth Games was "pure, dead brilliant" and the whole crowd just loved it. There was probably not one person in the stadium who didn't smile at that and it was just absolutely marvellous.
The obvious lowlight was when Prince Edward said the Commonwealth Games were closed. Everybody was very gutted about that, but that was going to inevitably happen.
But I think the highlight of the night for me came at the very end when everybody started to sing "Caledonia" along with Deacon Blue and then when all the acts united together on the stage and started singing "Auld Lang Syne" and then suddenly you can see all around, everybody holding hands together singing that song and it was absolutely a sight to behold.
It's something I have never ever seen in my life, through my own two eyes and just seeing that was so special. It was the best show I have ever witnessed in the whole of my entire life and to be honest I don't think there's going to be very much that beats it, because it was just that special and adding the fact that nearly a billion people (not a million, a billion) all over this planet watched that show - I mean it just summed up how vital and important this event was and how significant it was as well and it was just such a great night.
The other two things I will say - I thought the security team were fantastic. I thought the police, army and other organisations who helped out with the security and looking after everybody - I thought that they were absolutely amazing.
The second thing I will mention, I thought the transport was just fantastic. The trains, albeit some of them were a few minutes late because of high demand, they still ran very well and the shuttle buses especially from Hampden back to the city centre were absolutely fantastic.
A superb experience as a spectator at Glasgow 2014. It's a huge credit to them and all the organisers for how brilliant the experience was and I just loved it.
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