When Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) President Prince Imran declared Glasgow's Games "the best ever", he was taking a leaf out of the book of former International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch, a consummate politician who knew that such statements played wonderfully well with the home crowd as well as setting down a challenge for the next hosts.

So when Gold Coast welcomes the Commonwealth in 2018 for the first Games under new CGF chief executive David Grevemberg, they know they have a lot to live up to.

Glasgow's Games were a triumph for the city, a tub thumping exercise for Scotland - a nation on the precipice of an independence referendum - and a massive shot in the arm for the Commonwealth Games after its difficulties in New Delhi last time out.

The Games ticked more or less every box for the host city and nation and for millions of spectators who packed stadia and arenas and lined the routes of cycling, marathon and triathlon events.

Come rain or shine, spectators packed the venues and roadsides to watch the sporting action ©Getty Images



It was all a long way from the last time that Scotland hosted the Games, in Edinburgh back in 1986. My company West Nally worked on the project to secure sponsorship funding to support the late publishing tycoon and fraudster Robert Maxwell's claims to save the Games from bankruptcy.

Those Games may have succeeded in their own way but at the time it seemed to many of us that the Commonwealth Games was a dead horse and that we were flogging it!

Glasgow staged the Games wisely and well. Its smart use of existing venues and careful legacy planning when new facilities were built is an example for others and the Games are sure to have inspired young Scots to make use of those facilities in the years to come.

But the impression I took from the Glasgow Games is that most of the impact and most of the benefit was strictly parochial. While acknowledging the lack of rigid science in my approach, I spoke to as many people - in particular younger people - as I could during the Games and asked them for their impressions. The vast majority said that despite massive media coverage and wall-to-wall free TV coverage - in the UK - it had simply passed them by.

The way the Games were staged was world class, the venues looked great, the atmosphere was outstanding and there were some great performances and great stories to be enjoyed. So why did the Games fail to register?

The Commonwealth Games may not be the best for sporting quality, but that is not really the point ©Getty Images



Maybe it's the simple fact that the only box Glasgow 2014 didn't tick was the quality of sport. The Commonwealth Games have a tremendous amount going for them but, by definition, they do not guarantee the best competitors and world class competition and that is never going to change.

The good news is that Glasgow showed other cities around the world exactly what can be achieved by hosting specialist multi-sports events like the Commonwealth Games. The success of hosting is measured by the way the host city achieves specific objectives, so perhaps it doesn't matter that youngsters in England were left unmoved by the whole thing. The Commonwealth Games is never going to deliver the global awareness and impact of the Olympics but that was never the plan. The Games achieved what they set out to achieve and did it without leaving the city skint for a generation.

Let's hope that Glasgow's success inspires not only a generation of Scottish youngsters to get involved in sport, but municipal authorities around the world to consider what can be achieved  by hosting multi sports events based on regional, linguistic and cultural affiliations and specific sports groupings.

The sports, media, commercial and municipal communities need to be thinking of new approaches to bidding and hosting events and Glasgow has proved there's tremendous value there for those who get it right.

Patrick Nally is chief executive of West Nally which is supporting UNESCO's MINEPS follow-up conference on Hosting Major Sports Events to be held in Paris on March 5 and 6 2015. To follow him on Twitter click here.