By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Being a Scot and a proud one at that, the things that allows us to puff out our chest with pride is when we do a sport well. Although it is not often, the one thing we tend to do well is organization. With the memory of a hugely successful Commonwealth Games, held in Edinburgh in 1970, the best Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow in 2014, in between we can tone down the excitement of the one in between – the 1986 Games in the capital city of Edinburgh. It was to be a blast.

Unfortunately, the British government of the day, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, had policies with due regards to apartheid South Africa that meant our global policies were seen by many as unpalatable. Support for sport in the racist regime of South Africa led to a major boycott by mainly black nations which along with the event being beset by financial trouble, led to the media magnate and financial crook, Robert Maxwell, becoming chair and announcing himself savior. The rest of us were trying to find some form of sporting integrity to applaud.
We got it.