Dylan Cleaver: Games have tradition, but mostly bloody good fun

It can't be great walking into a room to find a dog has vacated its bowels in the corner, to see wiring protruding from sockets and rusty nails and construction detritus left in piles.

But to suggest those nails should be used to bang the lid shut on the Commonwealth Games' coffin is a (collapsed) bridge too far.

The Commonwealth Games are an anachronism. They could be seen as a bit of puff and pageantry from the good old days when the sun never set on the Union Jack.

Then the Empire changed to a Commonwealth, the Brits looked across the Channel to Europe for companionship and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone under the age of 40 who has heard of the Singapore Declaration, let alone what it provides the framework for.

But who cares?

The idea that we should abandon the Commonwealth and align our sporting interests with Asia suggests that the Games are some sort of geo-political football.

The Commonwealth Games have a history and tradition of their own that has outlived the imperial age. Most of all, they're bloody great fun.

For two weeks every four years, a bunch of disparate nations that speak the same language and once had a monarch in common get together to hurl stones, shoot targets, run around a track and generally have a whale of a time.

It no longer sits at the top table of sporting events - it never really did - but if you recalibrate your expectations in line with its diminishing importance, you'll still have a blast following it.

The beauty of sport is competition and the Commonwealth Games provide it in spades: rugby fans might like the NPC less than Super rugby because quality is lower, but we still like it. The Commonwealth Games' legacies may carry less gravitas than those left by the Olympics, but the images remain indelible.

Richard Tayler's limbs-akimbo celebration around QEII Park; Walker and Bayi's battle in the sun at the same Games; Graham May resembling a toppling kauri; Snell's supremacy in Perth; Sylvia Potts tripping a few metres short of gold in Edinburgh.

Remember Craig Barrett's knock-kneed demise in Kuala Lumpur, or the smiles of 14-year-old golden girl Nikki Jenkins or 52-year-old silver medallist Millie Khan at the 1990 Games?

For many of those athletes, the Commonwealth Games represented the pinnacle of their careers. That might not have Coca-Cola and Kodak queuing to buy the rights like they have for the Olympics - good.

In the immortal words of Steve Allen, let's "Join Together, let laughter fill the air ..."

Even if we're not entirely sure what we're joining together for.