Attitude problems
Michael Henderson
THE Commonwealth Games in Manchester were a terrific success. Of course they were. Every time you turned on the radio or television somebody was busy saying how superduper they were, how Manchester had shamed hopeless London, the home of grotty old Wembley, and how British sport could, after all, make something work properly. Jolly good. Manchester is the city of my birth, and I'm pleased to know that its staging of the socalled 'Friendly Games' won such enthusiastic notices. People worked hard to make them a success, and they deserve recognition.
However, coming from Manchester, I noticed different things. On the night that the Queen declared the Games open I drove around town and couldn't fail to notice that, far from benefiting from urban regeneration, it looked more deprived than ever. No more than a mile from the City of Manchester Stadium. as Her Majesty was enjoying the delights of an opening ceremony that seemed to be aimed at slow-witted teenagers, I passed not one, not two, not three, four or five, but six pubs in a row that had been boarded up. There was a spanking new young-persons tavern, though, bearing the name (I'm not making this up) of Screwy Hughie's. And they call this urban regeneration!
What have we done to our cities? For a proper answer to that question, and other ones related to the compulsory slumming that is part of the national curriculum, one has only to read Theodore Dahymple's regular dispatches in these pages. Manchester is not necessarily the worst example of urban life. It is just one city among many, and none of them holds a candle to the cities on the Continent. If you try to compare Manchester with Munich, say, you'll do yourself an injury laughing. Nevertheless, it proved a wonderful host of the Commonwealth Games.
To get the most out of them, though, you had to ignore the sentimental claptrap that goes with these events. The soft-soaping began during the opening ceremony, when a loose-tongued reporter from Radio Mate referred to Manchester 'attitude', whatever that might mean. Then the master of ceremonies yelled, 'They say you're the party capital of the country. They say a welcome in this city is like no other.' I trust that man is now housed in secure accommodation. These 'inclusive' Games were, apparently, about 'nice nationalism' and that old favourite 'multi-culturalism'. To that end the city council put up posters which appeared to suggest that every other resident of Manchester was a homosexual. But whereas you could eat goat curry at any one of 100 places, it was impossible to find decent bangers and mash. Clearly English cuisine comes under the heading of nasty nationalism.
It goes without saying that television coverage of the Games was, in the main, poor. One chump pronounced, 'The women's hammer launched the Games.' Do producers of television and radio programmes actually listen to what their reporters are saying, or do they no longer know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong? Or do they know, and simply not care? The exceptions were Steve Rider, a true pro, and Hazel Irvine, the perky Jockette, of whom we ought to see more.
But there were good things. One night, after the runners and jumpers had done and dusted, the spectators were going home. Among the happiest were a group of disabled people who had been driven in by Salford City Council. In the midst of so much televised sentimentality it made a touching moment, and offered a reminder of how precious is the athlete's gift.
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