Bravo Glasgow

Scotland's biggest city has another event to shout about

Congratulations Glasgow! The city has been picked to host the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

Excitement reached fever pitch in November and when the announcement was made there were celebrations across the country in typical Scottish style. I particularly liked the pictures of dour politicians holding hands and hugging each other, and of new First Minister Alex Salmond punching the air.

The news was announced not long after London won the 2012 Olympics, which means it's going to be a busy few years for the United Kingdom. And because we won't have had quite enough sport by then, we'd going to pitch for the Football World Cup in 2018 as well.

There's bound to be much squabbling over funds of course, but luckily for Glasgow much of the necessary infrastructure is already in place.

Hampden Park, Scotland's national football stadium, will be filled with more than 25,000 square metres of rubble and polystyrene to create an athletics arena. There will be bowls at Kelvingrove and other sports including shooting, seven-a-side rugby, netball, aquatics and table tennis at other venues across the city.

Glasgow is already a vibrant, happening city but the games will bring further lasting regeneration, which can only be good for Scotland as a whole.

The Clyde waterfront is one example of a successful regeneration project in progress. Each year in autumn, the Paragraph Publishing team are dragged from our desks to staff our yearly Whisky Live event in Glasgow, and each year we stay on t...

To read the rest of this article you can do any of the following.

• By : Sally Toms
• In : Editor's View
• Issue : 36
• Page : 3
• Words : 600