Commonwealth Games

This month’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow has brought back memories of 2002 when I went to the Manchester Games. It involved a lot of driving—I had to get from Polzeath on the Cornish coast all the way up Manchester in one afternoon—and a lot of standing in the rain. My media accreditation details had gotten messed up and I had to queue in an absolute downpour for over an hour, umbrella-less,  before getting my laminated pass.

I remember the doubles being awful. Lefties playing on right wall; one match had three southpaws on court. Refs calling halftime during the warmup and then saying, sheepishly, “well, you can switch sides if you want”). Endless points.

There were the half dozen bagel matches in the opening rounds of the singles. I loved the spectacular swoop of Manchester City’s new stadium next to the squash building (and Man City was, back then, just rejoining the Premier League). And the main media room was enormous and studded with live feeds from every sport being played that day. It was gratifying to be at such a major event and have squash be treated as an equal—except for making its reporters queue up in the pouring rain.

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