Big sport comes to town

His message was not one of foreboding but of eager expectation. He had been in London too in 2012. Both of us, with a dollop of smugness that would embarrass Paul Daniels, had witnessed the unfolding of a modern games and both of us had seen the future of Big Sport. We know it works.

A trudge through the mayhem and disarray of the SECC last week merely franked this view. There is a period of gestation before Big Sport can be born. Glasgow's labour pains in that concrete citadel on the Clyde were loud. They will continue for some time but they will be replaced by cheers.

It is the first rule of Big Sport. The pre-existence of the Commonwealth Games will be untidy, even shambolic and will cause some heartache. Unsuspecting ­citizens are already being told to leave for work three days early and with a full bag of provisions in case of being trapped in the sort of gridlock that demands an REM song. Roads will be closed with an alacrity that suggests aliens are coming. There will be more cones than at a Nardini family reunion.

There will be deep and tedious discussions about legacy. There will be moans about spending a hundred gazillion trillion - about the same price as an MOT on a Trident - on varying ways of running, jumping, cycling, putting objects in nets, putting other objects near an object called jack, and shooting the bejesus out of a shed-load of innocuous targets. People will punch each other, and not all of them will be journalists on deadline. Others will lift very, very heavy objects over their head while others will thrash feathered missiles over the top of a net.

It will all run the danger of being too expensive, too frenetic and, finally, too absurd.

But it will work. And that is the second rule of Big Sport. Its success will be assured by a heavenly alchemy. It is what occurs inevitably when top-class athletes interact with a fervent crowd.

The cynics will say that the Commonwealth Games cannot rival the Olympic Games in the depth of quality. They are right. But there will be Olympic quality.

There will be David Rudisha, the 25-year-old Kenyan who has turned the 800 metres into a sprint event. There will be Nicol David, the 30-year-old Malaysian squash player whose all-consuming hunger for victory will bring her to Glasgow for another full course of success.

And, yes, there will be Bolt, Mo Farah, Christine Ohuruogu, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and other leading athletes. And, yes, there will be those auditioning for the part of local hero whether it be Eilidh Child or Michael Jamieson or others as yet shrouded in an anonymity that dissolves on contact with gold, silver or bronze.

But, most crucially, there will be Mr and Mrs Joe Punter and weans. The third lesson of Big Sport is that it can be impossible to resist its charms. The spectators will be broadly placed into two camps. Those who watch on telly and those who will head for Hampden, Tollcross, the SECC and even, dear reader, the exotic far reaches of Edinburgh.

The former group may be restricted in their view, may be content to debate heatedly if futilely with commentators over the intricacies of the final shot of the last end of a bowls encounter at Kelvingrove. But they will not be denied personal contact with the Games, whether that comes in the shape of a chance encounter with a baffled tourist or the proximity to a failing marathon runner or the cooling swoosh of a cycle road race.

The latter group, that selected elite of ticketholders who braved everything Ticketmaster could muster, who held on to phones telling them their call was important when it was as crucial as a go-faster stripe on an air-to-surface missile, who tapped furiously on personal computers, who waited and wondered, and hoped and despaired, and were finally granted two tickets for the second session of the squash ...well, that group of the patient and the meek have inherited the Earth, or at least the Commonwealth part of it. They can prepare for the 2014 experience. The only advice that can be given to them is to be prepared to nurture their capacity for patience. If it was frustrating to wait three days for a website to update just to tell one that one was as lucky as Jonah booking the last berth on the Titanic, then be prepared for queues.

The best place to park will be just outside one's door. Entrance to the Games should be viewed as if the starting time was a flight time. One lesson of London is that one has to be at the venues early for the security checks.

But what should both sets of spectators, those watching at home or by the roadside or those in the stadiums, expect? Frankly, the Games will offer that most precious of gifts: the creation of memories. It may be Rudisha leading from start to finish, it could be Jamieson touching the end of a pool before anyone else, and it should be Bolt in lightning pose at Hampden after trousering another gold medal.

But the Commonwealth Games has the capacity for creating much, much more. Every event, every moment, offers the potential for joy, despair, excitement, disappointment and occasional, banal boredom. Big Sport is the human race at play and it reflects us in all our foibles and strengths.

The best advice for the fortnight is to watch and make up one's own mind. There was a moment in London when I turned the corner to be engulfed in queues for the archery. They were the only tickets available and Mr and Mrs Joe Punter had suddenly decided they had to be part of the Olympics and if arrows shot at boards at Lord's was the only option, then so be it.

Glasgow offers the same opportunity. The chance to see that third badminton session on a Tuesday or glimpse the weightlifting in the morning should be grasped. The marathon and the cycle road race may be coming to a street near you.

As the Games official said, one cannot know what is coming. But it will be memorable.