The Commonwealth Games

We've just got back from four incredible days in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games. I say Glasgow, but in fact we stayed in Edinburgh on account of the cheaper hotel prices (£370 for four nights compared with £1100), meaning we had to commute from Scotland's two major cities on a daily basis. It was a bit of a hassle - the journey being 50 minutes and necessitating some very early starts and late nights - but it was generally straightforward, despite First's 'Personal Best' being utter shash as they cancelled two early morning trains resulting in late arrivals in Glasgow Queen Street. To be fair to them though, they dealt with the huge numbers of people very well, with all transport infrastructure running reasonably smoothly. Granted, it wasn't as hassle free as London, but then London has got masses of infrastructure to play with whereas Glasgow was operating on one Subway, two main line stations and a reasonably extensive suburban train network. There were long queues to get on most trains ahead of the events but these moved very quickly, the longest only taking 30 minutes to proceed through on the Sunday evening as we headed back to Edinburgh. All in all then, a triumph of organisation under the circumstances as numbers equivalent to the whole population of Glasgow descended on the city on a daily basis.

We saw nine events overall and probably overstretched ourselves in all honesty. We opted to walk to most of the events, even though many of them were a good half hour walk out of the city centre. This resulted in Wolfie busting his ankle by the end of the third day but it also meant we got to see the city firsthand, a city I had only visited once before and ended up getting quite pissed in before getting to see much of it. Glasgow, like Bristol, is one of those places which just keeps on giving. The more I explored, the more I fell in love with the place. There were so many interesting little bars, nooks and crannies to see and the atmosphere across the area was electric in celebration and anticipation. The Games makers (called Clydesiders) were enthusastic, helpful and cheery, and everyone was incredibly friendly. We spoke to loads of people - those going to events, those serving us in bars, police officers, Clydesiders - and the whole thing captured the Olympic spirit perfectly and propelled it further. Everyone was talking to each other, sharing stories and having fun, and it was such an incredible place to be, even if the weather was erratic as is typical for the west coast of Scotland.

We started our trip going to see two Rugby Sevens sessions, which sandwiched a Weightlifting event at the SECC. Fortunately, Ibrox (where the rugby was taking place) was only a 15 minute walk from the Weightlifting so we managed to fit it all in pretty well (although we did leave the rugby slightly early just to make sure). The Rugby Sevens was one of the most enjoyable aspects of our trip - the atmosphere in Rangers' homeground was pumping and this was aided by the both of us being huge rugby fans. We had never seen Sevens before but it's very much a faster paced version of Rugby - having half the number of players on the same size pitch as standard Rugby creates gaps through which it is easier to score. It's quite a tactical game with every player having to play their part. It's limited to 14 minutes a game due to the huge amount of running that's required. The disparity between many of the teams - lets be honest and admit that Rugby isn't played by that many nations properly - meant that cricket scorelines were quite common and this got a little dull after a while. However, there were some close games in between and the Scottish love for supporting the underdog became contagious, resulting in the whole stadium cheering Uganda's rather lithe players against some of the bigger boys. It was this that changed things for them against Sri Lanka, coming back from 14-0 down to secure an incredible 17-14 win, with the last try being greeted to raptuous scenes in the stadium. I was swept up in the wave of euphoria and was cheering and clapping along, particularly at the end when the Ugandan players did a lap of honour to soak up the adulation of the crowd. Of course, there were quite a few England fans there while Scotland were understandably heavily supported, but that was nothing compared to the love the locals had for the Ugandans.

The Weightlifting in the middle of the day, the 58kg women's class, was another highlight of our trip as we saw England's Zoe Smith claim gold and Wales's Michaela Breeze taking bronze. These women were remarkably slim, with little visible muscle at all, but their cores must have been amazingly strong as Smith set a Games record of 210kg (92kg in the snatch, 118kg in the clean and jerk). Games records kept being broken, such was the standard of competition, while it was great to see the cameraderie backstage, particularly between Smith and Breeze. The event lasted about two hours and was incredibly intense, but I must admit I enjoyed every minute of it. Nigeria's Ndidi Winifred took silver, but she was visibly less delighted than the two Home Nations favourites. We also got to see the medal ceremony, where was good to see England's national anthem not being 'God Save The Queen' as it is in football and a range of other mainstream sports. I'm not a fan of Jerusalem myself, with my favourite musical interlude being the Commonwealth Games anthem being played by a lone bagpiper. Indeed, the Scottish theme was heavily played at the Games, with the Proclaimers regularly being played at Ibrox during the Rugby and Scottish colloquialisms like 'Gie it laldy' being fired up on the big screen to get everyone clapping, stomping and showing encouragement. There was a fair bit of that, particularly when the Scots were competing, but it was perhaps a little more subdued than at the Olympics for whatever reason. In addition to this, I managed to get one of my tweets onto the big screen for everyone to see, meaning the pink puppy mascot suit was shown at the Games! And of course there was Clyde, the anthropomorphic thistle mascot at whom I initially bawked but with whom I fell in love as our stay at the Games progressed. So much so that I bought a plush mascot of him from the Games Merchandise stands at all of the venues and enjoyed trying to spot the 25 statues of Clyde littered across the city (I only saw four in the end).

Sunday was an incredibly early start for the Badminton, which was at the Emirates Arena adjacent to Parkhead. meaning I had now seen the two major football stadia in Glasgow in the space of 24 hours. Surprisingly judging by our general laziness, we were only about 10 minutes late to the session, which wasn't too bad considering we were stuck in a queue at Argyle Street station after initially attempting to walk there but giving up once the rain started to pour. The weather was most inclement on Sunday but once inside the Badminton, we had a treat as we watched the semi-final of the mixed team event, which was Malaysia v Singapore. Having friends in both nations, I was torn on who to support, opting to go with the Singaporeans on account of the fact they were the up-and-coming underdogs against the established masters. The semi-final was a best of five matches affair, with some singles and some doubles taking place. In the end, it went down to the last eight points, with the tie being 2-2 in matches,1-1 in games and 13-13 in points in the fifth and final match. Consequently it was incredibly exciting and our vantage point above one end of the court was exceptional, particularly as it was looking right down at it (I booked a lot of the more expensive tickets on account of them being not particularly expensive at all). I have always liked Badminton as it was a sport at which I was half-decent at school (one of a very small number) and it seems to be far faster than tennis due to the use of a smaller court. The tie ebbed and flowed and was exceptional value for money, what with it being so close and taking over five hours to reach its conclusion. I tweeted as much, and I got my second tweet on the big screen, because I am doubly awesome.

Enthused by the excellent Badminton, we tried to get some tickets for the afternoon's Cycling session at the adjacent Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome. It was a long shot which proved to be too long so we traipsed back into the centre of town via the train in order to get some food. We got lucky as we could have joined one of four queues at the railway station, opted for the second one and got straight on a train with no waiting at all. With four hours to kill ahead of our second session of the day, we decided to have a look around the centre of the city, stumbling across Pinto's, a Mexican canteen style burrito place not dissimilar to Bar Burrito in Leeds. However, in addition to burritos they also do quesadillas and spying the cheap prices (£4.45 in this case for a pulled pork one) we decided that this would be a good spot for lunch. We also ordered some tortillas which came with lashings of guacamole, sour cream and salsa, and suffice to say that this is the best canteen style Mexican restaurant I have ever been to. It was so goregous that I cannot even describe how gorgeous it was, and this was only enhanced by the range of sauces they had on offer too. I cannot speak highly enough of this delectable emporium and I told the staff so on the way out. They were also very friendly when serving us, asking us about the Games and the events we had seen, adding to the impression that this is such a welcoming city. I told my Dad, who studied at the University of Glasgow in the Seventies, and he confirmed it too. It was at this point I started to fall in love with the place.

This love developed later in the day. Having discovered this article in the Guardian about the 10 best craft beer pubs in the city, we opted to search a few out. The one nearest to us was Meat Bar, a restaurant-cum-pub type place in the basement of a building on West Regent Street. The barman was trememdously friendly, allowing us to sample a few of the beers on offer, before Wolfie offered for a Joker IPA and I went for the less hoppy draught brewed specifically for the company. We headed to a little private space in the corner, which had a television showing the Disney version of Peter Pan on it. He asked whether we wanted to change the channel to watch the Athletics, having discussed with us at the bar the Games events to which we had been, but as we hadn't seen the film in years, we opted to sit and watch it, albeit without sound. It made me want to watch it again, even though I tended to side with Hook and the Ticking Crocodile as I always thought Peter Pan and Tinkerbell were precocious little pricks. Anyway, 30 minutes later, a family came in and took the table next to us, saying "it was fine but it might be quite a squeeze". A combination of seven of them and extreme obesity certainly saw to that, meaning our little cubby hole was no longer cosy and quiet so we opted to slink away and try another bar.

We tried to head to Blackfriars Bar & Kitchen some 10 minutes away on the other side of Glasgow, but there was a music festival in the centre of the city and the bar area was consequently rammed. It was also next to the Irn-Bru exhibit which was effectively a metal container you would see on a container ship, painted bright orange with a roof terrace on it. Every now and then, they would bring some of Scotland's sports heroes on to the podium and everyone would cheer. The queues for this were inexplicably massive so we decided to abort and head towards the east of the city, towards our next venue and the Drygate bar. If you read the Guardian article, they are a little cynical about this place as it's on the site of the Tenant's Brewery and "may be funded by sales of Scotland’s biggest-selling fizzy pish". It is likely an attempt for the big brewing companies, spooked by the rising popularity of craft beer, to get a slice of that market but if they can produce a bar as good as this then I am all for it. The range of craft beer is immense, including five local brews brewed by the company to sell on site. In addition to this, the food looked excellent, so much so that we had to sample a grazing board where we enjoyed Smoked Applewood Cheddar Brûlée and Chorizo Pâté. Both were gorgeous, particularly the brûlée, which was like a crème brûlée with the sweet crispy sugar top but underneath was warm liquid cheese. It was positively orgasmic in the mouth, one of the best things I have ever eaten, with the sweet sugar contrasting with the gooey sharp cheese perfectly in terms of taste and texture. Granted there was not enough bread but this was probably the best £7 I have ever spent and my only regret is that we couldn't spend longer than one hour here nor could we find the time to go back for lunch. It's defintiely on my list of venues to which to return though, and I have every intention of returning to Scotland very soon.

We tried to eke out longer in this bar but we needed to go to our next event, the Hockey, which was at the National Hockey Centre just off London Road. This turned out to be around 15 minutes' walk from Drygate, admittedly through some pretty dodgy looking locales but as it was light, it didn't really matter and we found our way to the complex easily enough. Of all the venues for the Games, this was probably my favourite as after security (like the Olympics, we had to go through metal detectors at every event), there was a little park where there was food concessions, merchandise stalls, a bar and also a load of porta-potties (what fun they are). There was also a place to play miniature hockey and a load of other cool stuff for just chilling and relaxing. However, we were there to see the Hockey, which was so compelling that we decided to stay right until the end, despite it meaning a long walk in the dark back to the centre of the city and an even longer queue to board a train back to Edinburgh (as I have already explained). Both Wolfie and I fell in love with this sport due to its fast pace and excitement, which made me wonder why Football is so popular relative to other sports. I like Football, I am not going to deny that, but I think there are better sports and I would include Hockey (and Rugby) in that list. Anyway, there were two matches in this session, the first seeing Canada beat Trinidad and Tobago 3-1 and the second seeing England hand out an 8-1 thumping to Malaysia. To be fair to the Malays, it was 1-1 at half-time and England only came into the ascendancy in the final 20 minutes of the second half. Still, it was thrilling to see an English win, and indeed this is one of the reasons why we didn't leave early. I actually knew the rules to the sport before we sat down, but the commentator took us through the major decisions for those who were unsure, meaning it was very easy to pick up the rules if you didn't know them. The quality of play was excellent though and I particularly loved the fact the game is so end-to-end, with resumption in play very quick after the ball has been hit out of play. As a consequence, it's a frenetic affair, meaning it is real edge-of-the-seat stuff and it was nice to see the players respecting the referee's decision. The Green Card system for sinbins and video technology is really something which should be embraced by football but I doubt it ever will be. During the end of the first half of the England match, the heavens opened and we were succumbed to the rain. Fortunately, the Merchandise Stall had plastic ponchos on hand for £4, a not inconsiderable price considering demand had now vastly overtaken supply so we managed to stay dry pretty comfortably. We had watched the clouds gather as the sun set, with our view westwards meaning we saw the golden orb drop below the horizon, or, more accurately behind a thick angry grey cloud. It was quite romantic in a meteological kind of way. The Hockey was great fun, as was the 30-minute interval entertainment which provided a common theme throughout the Games, with athletes trying to beat fans in a competition of how many fruit and vegetables they could name. I didn't really see the point in it, but there you go. The countdown to the action starting featuring Sir Chris Hoy, Tom Daley and Rebecca Adlington was also a nice touch, building up the excitement and anticipation perfectly.

Monday was a slightly later start but still not wildly early as we had to go to Hampden Park, Scotland's National Stadium in the faraway suburb of Rutherglen, to see the Athletics. This was always going to be the highlight for me, having never seen Athletics in direct competition before, but with a cancelled train, we were running late. We zipped over to Central Station where we were greeted by a humungous queue, but with trains every 10 minutes and each train carrying 500 passengers, it moved surprisingly quickly thanks to the expertise of the rail staff (who admittedly erroneously directed us to platform 11 instead of 9 right at the end). We were soon on a train though, packed in like sardines (but far less fishy) where a bald Yorkshireman kept saying if the Games were in Leeds, there wouldn't be this much transport problems. I declined to mention that three weeks ago, during the Tour de France, the trains from Leeds to Harrogate were so overbooked that they advised people not to bother travelling at all. Once out of the station (Mount Florida if anyone really cares), you have to go up a hill, avoid a huge horse dump in the middle of the road and there on your right is Hampden Park in all its glory. You can marvel at the architecture as you head down towards it, and such was the efficient nature of the queue, 10 minutes later we had taken our seats inside the stadium. In all honesty, the seats weren't the best, but then Athletics was a high-demand event and I had opted for cheaper tickets. They still gave us a good vantage point though but we were on the side of the back straight and away from where the discus and hammer throwers were doing their thing. Still, the view was rather good and it didn't impare our enjoyment at all. In fact, the time flew as there was so much stuff to watch. Hammer, discus, shotput, long jump, decathlon, high jump, 100m, 400m and 1500m were all taking place. The track events were all heats but we had the F42/44 discus final to enjoy, which was won by Leicesterman Dan Greaves with a truly monumental throw. However, massive support was had for the Nigerian bronze medalist, who only had one leg and threw without turning after discarding his crutches. It's a positive thing I feel that para sport is treat completely equally at the Commonwealth Games, as opposed to the Olympics, which has a separate event, the Paralympics. for disability sport. At the Commonwealth Games, the total medal tally includes medals won by everyone, including the Para athletes and this is true equality. I enjoyed watching the discus and the associated medal ceremony, even if the ceremony took place in front of the opposite stand to where I was which contained very few people. The resulting lap of honour was one of those magnificent moments of the experience as the stadium clapped all three medallists. The long jump and shotput took place right in front of us, which saw most of my focus, while the running races which were longer than 100m went right past us too. I got quite a few great photographs. In addition to all this, we tried a discus pasty from the catering booth, which was basically a steak and haggis pasty which was a little heavy on the pastry. The catering prices were a little pricey but that's to be expected at events such as this. It's just a shame that all they had was Heineken, even though that was surprisingly drinkable, particularly as it's such a novelty to be able to drink watching sport these days.

After our trip to the Athletics, we decided we wanted something to eat, so having spied a local gourment burger place called Ad Lib, we opted to go there when we saw it right next door to Pinto's adjacent to Central Station on Hope Street. This was another delectable find, with succlent offerings and Glasgow Megadeath source, which Wolfie instantly purchased such was its intense heat and flavour. Wolfie had a 'I Hate Mondays' burger with pastrami and Swiss cheese while I had a Steak and Phillie Cheese sandwich, with us sharing a bowl of Mac N Cheese. I am really delighted that Mac N Cheese has started to become a thing here, even though I grew up with this as a kid, when my parents opted for the far less catchy name of Pasta and Cheese Sauce. The cheese here was flavoured with chives and it was most delicious, while my Phillie Cheese sandwich was simply divine. The bearded hipster man serving us never really looked me in the eye, which was a bit odd, while the man on the table next to us seemed to discipline his kid by shouting at it then wondering why it wasn't working, but all in all it was an excellent meal for 3pm and a place to which I would definitely return.

The final event of Monday was Lawn Bowls at Kelvingrove Bowls Centre in the West End of the city. This is also where BrewDog is based so we decided to head over there early, partly to avoid the crowds and partly to get a drink. We hopped on the Subway and got to Kelvinhall pretty quickly, where we saw a topiary Clyde in the gardens of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery opposite BrewDog. The bar was full of elderly people, your typical Lawn Bowls fans it must be said, but we grabbed a beer from the bar and sat down. It was here when we noticed James Watt, the CEO and founder of BrewDog was sat directly opposite us. I asked the barman to confirm whether it was him, which he did, telling us they were filming to highlight the rebranding which will be taking effect in a couple of weeks. He was in a meeting so I opted not to disturb him (plus I didn't know what I would say beyond being all cringey and fanboyish) so we enjoyed our Pimm's style drink made from Jackhammer before heading across the road and into the event.

It's fair to say that Wolfie wasn't really looking forward to Lawn Bowls, and let's be honest, it's not the most riveting sport. And yet, I soon got into it as it's incredibly tactical by nature meaning if you have a good vantage point, you can anticipate moves before they happen. This was made more difficult though by the fact that only a spot on the ball indicates whose ball it is, rather than the colour of the ball itself. From an elevated viewing platform, it made things difficult. In addition to this, there were about 15 matches going on simulatenously, singles and team efforts, and with seating not allocated, it meant a mess of things to focus upon. In the end, I opted to view a team match between New Zealand and Malaysia, partly due to the Malaysian team having a strip looking like a tiger and partly because we were sat next to the New Zealand TV commentators who were commentating on the match. Even they yawned on occasion. It was great seeing the camerawork too, with the elevated arms adding an aerial perspective, while as I say it became very interesting very quickly. This was our third seat change since we had arrived - we could choose any one of six rinks, and there were about four matches per rink, but we opted for this game as it seemed rather tight (as opposed to India v Falkland Islands - a huge population disparity if ever there was one). Watching the skill of the bowlers was quite fun too, particularly the spin they put on the ball to ensure it veers towards the jack as it approaches it. Of course this is aided by the fact the boulles are not spherical but are oblique spheroids, but there is still a great amount of technique and precision involved. Having had little sleep the previous two nights and with the sun shining down, Wolfie did start to drop off, but we stuck through it almost to the end, where we thought it best to leave early so we could get back to Edinburgh. Our heavy schedule was taking its toll and we still had Weightlifting and more Hockey to come.