Manchester city united to win gold

By CHRIS RATTUE at the Games

There were two Manchester Uniteds over the past fortnight.

The first is the most famous sports club on earth, and it never rests. Hardly a day goes by without the Red Devils poking their fork in your face. The other united, though was the city which hosted the Commonwealth Games, and did so with some style even if it could be a bit rough around the edges.

The consensus in England is that Manchester has put London to shame.

The capital has ground to a halt as a viable venue for major sporting occasions. They can't even get started on pulling Wembley Stadium down, so paralysed is the London bureaucracy.

Yet despite scepticism, Manchester has succeeded above expectations in hosting the Games. And that success has further boosted its reputation as one of the northern industrial cities finding inspiration and optimism from Europe rather than London in attracting attention to Britain.

The International Olympic Committee has insisted that London is the only British city capable of bidding to hold their Games, but Manchester has shed new light on the subject.

Manchester has given England credibility in its bid to stage big events, but ironically it has also highlighted the problems in London that include a gridlocked transport system.

Manchester wasn't perfect. If your diet isn't based around sausages, ice cream and the delights of chips with curry sauce, then you might have struggled to satisfy your cravings at a lot of venues.

The swimming was held at, in Olympic terms, something of a paddling pool.

The triathlon at the Salford Quays was a disaster in terms of viewing for the public, and its finish line and the organisation around it involved chaos of Maxwell Smart proportions.

But the main stadium, where the Manchester City soccer club will find a new home, was superb and the athletics inspiring even if there were more no-names than household ones.

The British have a tradition of athletics, and it is after all the centrepiece of any Commonwealth or Olympics event.

The majesty of watching runners in full flight then averting the eyes to find a spinning discus or leaping long jumper is a unique sporting experience, especially in a stadium full of atmosphere as the one at Manchester was.

Maybe the event that really made an impression though was the road cycling. It was based at the Rivington and Blackrod Grammar School, which has been around since the late 1500s. There is nothing more English than green fields and stone walls, which are in plentiful supply at Rivington.

If you've got a bit of a thing for English pubs, then having a choice of establishments called The Crowne or The Squirrel is hops heaven.

A crowd of village fete style watched the action on a giant screen and listened to a superbly informative commentary, while supping their beer and munching on things that included the creations of "Johnny Baghdad", a distinctly English looking chap dispensing Mediterranean food.

Even when the rain came, semi-rural England cruised in enjoyment around the fields in front of the old stone school as the best of English rock'n roll gave the commentators some breathing space. As Sarah Ulmer might say, it was wicked.

Olympic and Commonwealth Games can almost bypass the cities they are in, and instead become a continual journey from standard stadiums, to press centres, on to buses, into hotels.

Rivington, though, was a piece of England, as was Wythenshawe, which hosted the boxing preliminaries. It was the sort of place that might have inspired characters like the dodgy Delboy from the TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses.

There were other quirky parts of Manchester to indulge in or tiptoe through. There was the curry mile, a famous stretch of Indian restaurants. Then there was the beery mile, between one of the main venues (and main press centre) and central city hotels.

This was where Mancunians young and a bit older staggered, cavorted, cuddled and rambled virtually every night, with fish and chips in hand and beer well on board. They were friendly enough, but you were on your guard. Someone described it as a bit of a freak show.

Manchester proved to be many things.

For those of us who always hold a special place for England and marvel at the lilting language and quirky humour, it only brings a smile when a woman ushers you through a gate saying: "Come on through, sugar."

As always, it is the volunteers who make the Games. They are people who give up their holidays and make other sacrifices to stand at gates and hear the cheers, rather than witness the cause of them. These people were superb.

The locals also played their part.

One newspaper column, which praised Manchester's effort, recounted the story of a visitor being tapped on the arm and informed: "Just to let you know we drive on the left side of the road here." Never mind that the visitor happened to be English.

Whether all of this is enough to suggest the city could stage an Olympics is another matter. Load up the intensity, increase the numbers and Manchester might just struggle.

But it can hold its head high after these Games. As one newspaper headline stated: "Manchester takes the gold."

Full coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/manchester2002

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Commonwealth Games info and related links