Glasgow won the right to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games in 2007. The bid had a regeneration narrative at its centre: the Games would anchor investment in the East End of Glasgow, one of the most deprived areas in Western Europe, transforming a post-industrial wasteland around the Athletes’ Village site in Dalmarnock into sustainable new housing and community facilities. The sports venues would be built for legacy use. The infrastructure would outlast the twelve days of competition.
This is how every major sporting event is sold, and the record of sporting events delivering on this promise is mixed at best. Glasgow 2014 is a more complicated case than most.
The Games Themselves
As a sporting event Glasgow 2014 was by most accounts a considerable success. Crowds were enthusiastic and large; the atmosphere in the Emirates Arena during the cycling and the gymnastics, in the Hydro during swimming and boxing, was genuinely impressive. Scotland performed well in the medal table, finishing third behind England and Australia. The opening ceremony – written by Paul Laverty and directed by Danny Boyle collaborator Franc Roddam – included a tunnelling mole in a hard hat being welcomed by a Tunnock’s caramel wafer, which expressed something accurate about Glaswegian humour.
The volunteer operation, which put 15,000 Games Maker-style volunteers onto the streets and venues, was one of the most praised aspects of the delivery. Glaswegians are, as a general observation, good at hospitality and directness simultaneously, which is an unusual combination that visiting journalists found charming.
Dalmarnock and the Athletes’ Village
The Athletes’ Village was built on land in Dalmarnock that had been cleared of its previous occupants – small businesses, some residential properties – in a compulsory purchase process that was contested and documented by journalist and academic research with some discomfort. A man called Dale Semple refused to sell his house and was eventually compulsorily purchased out. His case attracted attention to the human cost of regeneration that the official narrative preferred to minimise.
The 700 homes in the Athletes’ Village were converted to social and private housing after the Games. They are occupied. The Dalmarnock area around them has new roads, new parks, new facilities. Whether the level of investment represents a net improvement for the communities that were already there, as opposed to a development that happened to occur in their vicinity, is a question that housing researchers have continued to examine.
The Venues
The Emirates Arena and the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome were genuine additions to Glasgow’s sports infrastructure. The velodrome in particular gave Scotland a world-class cycling facility that has been used for international competition and public cycling programmes since 2014. The National Hockey Centre, Tollcross Swimming Centre and the Scotstoun Stadium were refurbished to legacy standards.
The Athletics Stadium in Hampden Park – a temporary field events facility installed within the football ground – was removed after the Games as planned. Track and field athletics does not have a permanent Glasgow home, which was always going to be a limitation of using a football ground.
The Balance Sheet
Glasgow 2014 cost approximately 560 million pounds and delivered infrastructure that remains in use, a city that demonstrated organisational competence to an international audience, and a two-week summer during which Glasgow was in genuinely good form. The East End is better served by sports facilities than it was in 2007. Whether the people who were there in 2007 are better off is a different and harder question. Ten years on, Dalmarnock’s deprivation indices remain significantly above the Glasgow average. The Commonwealth Games did not solve that. They were not, in fairness, designed to.
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