SPORT is a funny old game.

Netball, Scotland's least successful discipline at last year's Commonwealth Games, has reported the greatest increase in membership of any governing body in any sport. Despite being the most successful, with six golds and a medal for 13 of the 14 competitors, judo is well down the pecking order.

This emerges from figures announced yesterday by sportscotland which confirm spectacular legacy benefit. They confound those negative individuals and organisations - and there were many - who predicted there would be none.

There's a caveat. The data is based on provisional figures supplied by governing bodies and is used to determine future investment. Sportscotland say that their audit is robust, but if provisional figures are not achieved there will not necessarily be a clawback.

The figures show an overall 11% increase in memberships of the 17 Commonwealth Games sport governing bodies over the four years to 2014/15. The 13 Olympic sports which were not on the 2014 programme show a 9% increase for the same period. Volleyball Scotland membership has the largest rise, 63%. All this is clear proof that the 2012 Olympic effect continues.

Some of this has already been aired exclusively in these columns, but yesterday's announcement is the first detailed audit of all sports. It is backed by two further significant details:

1, Confirmation of a remarkable increase in coaches achieving UK Coaching Certificate awards with 4808 level-one coaches four years ago increasing to 16,489, and level-two coaches from 764 to 4202. The increase in memberships would almost certainly have been impossible without this.

2, Scotland's Community Sport Hubs catered for 818 individual clubs (86,373 members in 49 sports) across 32 local authorities at the end of 2013/14. There were 113 hubs then. Already a further 21 are operational, with a target of 150 by next year. This will result in further increases which will be published at a later date.

However, the most dramatic and far-reaching improvement is the membership increases - people joining clubs and participating. This may not win future international titles, but is surely a gold-medal for future health statistics.

In the four-year Glasgow cycle, Netball Scotland's 58% membership rise tops the lot - the sport which had the most dismal record of 2014, four defeats in six matches for the loss of 268 points, with 165 scored. Judo, the most successful 2014 sport, has a modest 21% increase.

Triathlon has seen 49% growth and gymnastics 37%.

It's worth noting that the two other under-performing team sports - failing to reach a match in which a medal could have been won - have nevertheless experienced decent increases. Hockey and rugby sevens are both up 15%. It is comforting that even in defeat these sports have crafted a positive outcome.

At the bottom end of the league table, lawn bowls, a successful discipline in Glasgow - second in the pecking order with three gold and a silver - is the only sport to experienced a drop in participation over the four years: 6%, though they are up 2% in the past year. This reverses a long-running trend for Bowls Scotland.

Target shooting records no change. It's a specialised discipline with a strong performance structure and sportscotland seem happy with the progress of a body which unified five organisations.

Wrestling was unable to demonstrate anything other than "upward trend figures". Individuals used to affiliate to British Wrestling which did not differentiate how many were Scottish members. This has only recently changed, hence the incomplete figures.

Growth is just one factor sportscotland used to determine investment. Others include effective governance, equality attainment, systemic approach, performance outcomes in major championships, potential impact, and sustainability. It would take failure on more than one front to influence future investment.

The mainstream sports, athletics and swimming, suffered mixed fortunes. Athletics is up 25%, but aquatics report just a 9% increase. This surely reflects the high level of participation among recreational swimmers who feel no need to become members of the governing body. However, it bucks the trend in England where there's a 245,000 decrease in participants.

Figures revealed last month by Sport England showed a downturn for a disturbing number of sports: golf, badminton, tennis, equestrianism, bowls, squash/racketball, boxing and basketball. Like swimming, they all face possible funding cuts. That this should occur on the back of London 2012 shows there can be no complacency on legacy delivery.

Membership of a governing body is not essential for participants. Clubs exist without affiliating. Until they do it is impossible accurately to quantify participation levels. The challenge for governing bodies is to make membership sufficiently attractive.

Sport is of course devolved, and sportscotland must be doing something right, but perhaps we should hold the cheering until provisional results are confirmed. And let's remember that legacy is not micro-waved. Seb Coe was inspired by watching the 1968 Olympics. It was 11 years before he broke his first world record, and 37 before he delivered the speech which took the Olympics Games to London.

There is a lot more legacy to be delivered from Glasgow 2014.