For one month only, I'm going to be acting as sports correspondent. This is in honour of the Commonwealth Games, which are being held close to us 25 miles (40 km) away in the City of Manchester.

There had been an exciting build up to the games with the journey of the Queens Jubilee Baton. The closest it came to the farm was about 4 miles (6.5 km) when it passed through the town of Northwich, Hannah Becky and I went to cheer it on its way

Although we would have liked to have been able to go and see the opening ceremony, tickets for such an event, were, as you can imagine, very scarce. Luckily, we had managed to get tickets for a number of events.

Paul, Hannah, Becky and I were privileged to have seats for the main stadium on the first Friday night. We saw all of the 100 metres athletes, the final of the men's 10,000 metres, and the final of the women's hammer.

This event won England's first Gold medal of the games. The atmosphere was truly magical as England's national anthem "Land of Hope and Glory" was sung by most of the immense crowd of spectators at the medal presentation ceremony.

We had hoped that all of us would be able to attend the athletics of the following Tuesday morning, but unfortunately, Phil was unable to come because weather had delayed the haymaking.

However, the rest of us set out very early in the morning in order to get to the stadium in time to see some more wonderful athletics, including a World record that was achieved by a blind Nigerian athlete.

There were plenty of opportunities for autograph hunting, as can be seen here when Paul asks David Moorcroft for his. David is a former Commonwealth Champion, and is currently Head of British athletics.

We also had an interesting, and very warm day at the table tennis. The speed at which this game is played is amazing.

Another event that we were able to watch was the Badminton. This is again a very quick and very exciting game to watch. We spent a full day watching it and there wasn't a dull moment during any part of it.

The final competition we had managed to get tickets for was the cycling in the velodrome. Many of the cyclists had said that they thought this was the best arena in the world for cycling, and it was easy to see why.

 

 

Lastly there was the stadium eating competion, and although I offered my services, for my country of course, they cancelled the event to preserve the track (which unfortunately may not be the fate of the real track).

I have only mentioned the events that we were able to see, although there were many, many more. Friends who saw some of those all agreed that they had had a wonderful time. All in all this was truly a fantastic 10 days for Manchester, and indeed for the North West of England as a whole. Every one concerned with the organisation and running can be very proud

Home Page / Previous Page

e-mail