I went to the Mitchell Library to look through old newspapers from July 1986 – the last time the Commonwealth Games were in Scotland.

It was a much richer experience than doing web research, as I saw it in the context of
all the other news in the papers at the time (including the strange outfits and haircuts)

I wanted to see if the word ‘legacy’ was mentioned. It wasn’t there at all.
The big news was that 27 countries were boycotting the games because Margaret Thatcher
would not impose economic sanctions on South Africa (against apartheid) and whether Zola Budd could compete on the British team even though she was from South Africa.

The sponsorship budget was 2 million and Robert Maxwell was in charge of it…