Tattooed women fill the beer tent

Just as there are 17 sports at the Commonwealth Games - involving sticks, water, balls, bikes, bats, racquets, guns and weights - so there is a diverse range of spectators.

Most sports have their idiosyncrasies. So do their fans.

Take the swimming. Each finals night is kicked off by a couple of blokes whose warmup routine involves getting the four sections of spectators doing the four swimming strokes to booming music.

These blokes clearly have tickets on themselves.

If they were made of chocolate they'd eat themselves.

All gold medallists are accompanied by music from their country as they make their victory lap around the pool.

It goes without saying that Waltzing Matilda has had plenty of air time, but my personal favourite would be the music played when the Scots win.

Out comes a lone kilted bagpiper or, as a variation, that song by the Proclaimers about walking hundreds of miles.

You can't fault the Australian crowd's enthusiasm for whoever wins.

The badminton is characterised by those dreadful thundersticks. Parents worldwide should form a protest movement, but the problem at the badminton is that many of those beating up a storm are adults.

"Let's go Kiwis, let's go," is tired, but they have a couple of other strange calls, a shouted "attack" being one.

A lone Indian voice raised a laugh during the playoff for bronze in the teams event when he responded, "Go home Kiwis, go home".

Table tennis is headquarters for the "Oi, oi, oi" brigade. When the squash court needs a wipe, it is done to the strains of Sadie, the Cleaning Lady.

Then there's the boxing fans.

They are an impatient lot, there for action. Forget the technical artistry, they want the biff and bop.

When New Zealand's super-heavyweight Grant Weenink and his Samoan opponent Niko Vaega dithered about in their first round, the crowd gave them the big hurry-up.

The beer tent gets a fearful hammering at the boxing. The Africans chant, a bloke on a flute plays tunes to match the nationalities of fighters entering the ring and it attracts more women with tattoos than any other sport.

At the Melbourne Cricket Ground remote-controlled car races keep the crowds entertained before the real action begins. Then the "G" reverberates to the booming roar of 70,000 voices, raising the hairs on your neck.