Let the fun and Games begin

Unless you had your sporting head over the moon, or on a different planet, or even in thrall to the surfeit of meaningless far-flung football friendlies for the Pan-Polynesia Cup or the Shirt Unit-Shifting Shield, then all things five-rings were in the vanguard of domestic sport this week.

Wednesday was exactly one year away from the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. Next year is a leap year so that meant 366 days… and counting.

They were all there in their droves – the BBC, Sky Television, ITV, Channel 4 – to herald the official completion of some of the bigger venues such as the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatic Centre.

They all came out to play and pay tribute to these new temples of sporting endeavour, and hopefully, excellence.

There were battalions of broadcasters, anchors, cameramen and minor media slebs rubbing shoulders with Olympic legends of the past and wannabe Olympic stars of the future.

Those politicians and spin-meisters who would go to the opening of junk mail if it offered the slight prospect of positively raising their profile, predictably also hitched themselves to the unveiling of the new stadia as well as crowding the podium at the mid-eve party in Trafalgar Square which followed.

PM David Cameron performed at his most unctuous, seemingly resisting – albeit fractionally – the temptation to hail the Olympics as yet another facet of his Big (Con) Society.

The manic Mayor of London, and arguably Cameron’s greatest stalking-horse enemy, Boris Johnson came over all pomp and circumstance, a sort of Winston Churchill parody betrayed by a floppy frosted fringe and words exclaiming that the nation was ready to welcome the world’s athletes.

It’s not perhaps overly British to blow one’s own trumpet but the fact that the principle venues had been completed a year in advance when previous Olympics, and for that matter, football World Cups, have often been presaged by frantic rushes to top and tail the not inconsiderable building work.

And, of course, England have not had a great record in delivering public works – witness the London Dome and the farce that was, still is in some degree, the new Wembley.

But even still the capital Mayor’s strident triumphalism was a tad over the top. Calm down Boris, calm down.

Indeed, the whole frenzied day probably had the opposite effect on those not directly involved, and particularly those citizens crowded in and around the capital.

Ever since the Games bid was successful there has been a definite mood that the 2012 extravaganza is too London-centric. Wednesday’s events did nothing to dispel that feeling.

It was always inevitable there would be a concentration in the capital, though with England being the small nation it is, geographically, the notion of having one of the grander stadia constructed in say, Birmingham, for instance, would have been feasible.

The Games bidders pitched part of their hard sell on the monumental aspect of a London backdrop. Fair enough, London is not without its share of significant sites of heritage. But it could have boasted the main stadium and aquatic centre, while somewhere in the Midlands the velodrome for the cycling, or even the handball/ basketball court could have been pitched.

So it would be no surprise to find how all the whooping and yahooing and celebration with still a year to go grated with other parts of the country.

My fervent belief is that the Games should be here and that this nation should be proud to host and also embrace the Olympiad.

But let’s get it in perspective. We’ve had a whole load of hoopla. What next? More frolics with six months to go, with 100 days to go, with one month to go, with one week left?

Time now to concentrate on the rest of the country and ensuring that we all feel more of a part of what should be the greatest sporting tournament to grace these shores since the 1966 World Cup.

And those of us alive back then can recall how it provided the most heart-warming sporting memory.