Mike Rowbottom
Mike Rowbottom ©Getty ImagesAs the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games loom ahead this summer - 54 days and counting - the memory of Scotland's last hosting of this event more than a quarter of a century ago resonates like, well, like the chord of A major with at least two strings playing flat.

For history now records that the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games were A major cock-up. And the two problematic strings were financial shortfall and a significant boycott by African, Asian and Caribbean nations.

The full extent of the mismanagement of those Games only became clear after all the fun and games was over. At the time of the Opening Ceremony it was reported that the event had made a loss of £2 million. Later it transpired that that figure was more than £4 million.

As a newly published book entitled The Commonwealth Games – Extraordinary Stories Behind The Medals (Bloomsbury, £12.99) describes, with less than two months to go before the Opening Ceremony the 1986 Games were already drifting towards debt under the palsied grip of an Organising Committee that was well intentioned but horribly out of its depth.

Scotland's team parades in the Opening Ceremony at the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games - but away from the track the event was beset by problems of finance and boycotting nations ©Getty ImagesScotland's team parades in the Opening Ceremony at the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games - but away from the track the event was beset by problems of finance and boycotts  ©Getty Images

Those charged with raising private revenue in the conspicuous absence of any central funding from Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government had failed to grasp the fact underlined two years earlier by the commercially brilliant Los Angeles Olympics.

Namely that sport was now a big, global business and that major events required a little more than an understanding local council - at least, before Labour regained control shortly before the Games - and a few decent home-town business sponsors.

Five weeks before the troubled Games were due to start, a self-styled "saviour" emerged in the substantial form of Robert Maxwell, owner of Pergamon Press, Mirror Group Newspapers, two football clubs and - as the book's author Brian Oliver, former sports editor of The Observer, writes - "a massive ego."

Robert Maxwell, pictured in 1969, was to arrive as a self-styled "saviour" at the troubled 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games ©Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesRobert Maxwell was to arrive as a self-styled "saviour" at the troubled 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Oliver's book is a treasury of nitty gritty, rich in detail about all the Commonwealth Games stories we thought we already knew, but now realise we didn't know fully.

His chapter on Maxwell and the bizarre atmosphere in which the 1986 Games veered narrowly away from total collapse is characteristically intriguing, exploring all angles. It includes, for instance, an estimate of the value the Great Proprieter gained for himself and his brand through the almost daily exposure near the top of the news as the Games approached. Accountants Coopers & Lybrand put a figure of £4.3 million ($7.1 million/€5.2 million) on it - coincidentally, the exact figure of the Games' final deficit.

More figures - Maxwell made great play of the fact that he would be investing £2 million ($3.3 million/€2.4 million) in the Games, but the figure he actually invested was around £250,000 ($418,000/€307,000). His claims weren't all smoke and mirrors - only mostly.

I was in Edinburgh for that bewildering period before the Games began, covering for The Guardian, and attended one of Maxwell's press conferences.

By the end of it I felt like a mesmerised rabbit. Something was wrong, but I couldn't put a name to it. I kept on seeing that beaming face and the beady eyes under bushy brows, kept on hearing the bogus boom of that voice. Everything was going to be all right, was going to be all right. Robert Maxwell, yes, he, Robert Maxwell, was going to make everything turn out all right...

Oliver is a proper journalist, and while he makes full play of the astounding Maxwell excesses, he also notes the "self-inflicted damage" wrought by earlier misjudgement on the part of the Organising Committee.

"The television rights were sold to the BBC for £500,000 ($836,000/€614,000) when others thought a fair price would have been at least three times as much," he writes. "When West Nally, one of the world's leading sports sponsorship agencies, were asked to step in they declined. They could see that the Games were heading for trouble, that the selling of sponsorship had been too localised and that too many bad deals had already been done..."

Ten days before the Games were due to start, the boycotts began - and they kept on coming, provoked by Mrs Thatcher's perceived sympathy for the South Africa regime and its apartheid policy, and her opposition to imposing economic sanctions upon that Government.

The perceived sympathy of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for the South African regime, and her refusal to back economic sanctions as a means of combating its apartheid policies, caused more than half of the eligible Commonwealth nations to boycott the 1986 Games ©Getty ImagesThe perceived sympathy of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for the South African regime, and her refusal to back economic sanctions as a means of combating its apartheid policies, caused more than half of the Commonwealth nations to boycott Edinburgh 1986 ©Getty Images

As the 13th Commonwealth Games opened in weather as gloomy as the prevailing mood, only 27 of the 58 eligible countries remained. Maxwell could do nothing about that ebb tide of nations. As far as the financial deficit was concerned, he insisted that contributions from individuals were still coming through and asserted that the Government would have to contribute money towards the rescue of the Games.

Meanwhile Malcolm Rifkind, Secretary of State for Scotland, maintained that financial assistance from the Government was out of the question.

Oliver puts the whole 1986 experience in context, however, when he recounts details of how there was no other bidder for those Commonwealth Games. "Had there been no Games in 1986, who knows whether they would have made it back to Scotland in 2014?" he concludes.

The Games have made their journey from inception in 1930 to the present day, and the author focuses on a succession of characters and key moments of action which have defined them over the years.

One chapter is devoted to the marathon marvel Ron Hill, victor at the 1970 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games and now approaching 50 years of consecutive daily runs. We learn that the runner who likened himself most closely to the Victor comic character Alf Tupper competed over 26.2 miles at the Commonwealth Games, European Championships and Olympics as a regular smoker of cigars and cigarettes before regretfully ceasing the habit after two disappointing defeats in 1966.

Another chapter compares the lives of two female high jumpers, Britain's Dorothy Tyler and Canadian Debbie Brill, who won Commonwealth titles with a gap of 12 years in between. "One was a pre-war British champion who said "be in bed by eight until you're married, and the other was a free-spirited child of the 60s", Oliver writes, before detailing Brill's likening of taking LSD to "a weekend away".

British high jumper Dorothy Tyler, who won Commonwealth titles 12 years' apart, pictured in action in 1938 ©Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesBritish high jumper Dorothy Tyler, who won Commonwealth titles 12 years' apart, pictured in action in 1938 ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Here too is the story of rival swimmers Adrian Moorhouse and Victor Davis, Olympic champions both, who first met in 1982 and first spoke in 1986, but became friends before the latter's untimely death in 1989 when he was deliberately run down by a car after an argument outside a bar.

The story of two gold medallists at the 1958 Cardiff Games who might have had Olympic titles but for the workings of fate, Scotland's Ian Black and South Africa's Gert Potgieter, is also recounted, as is the iconic meeting between Roger Bannister and John Landy in what was known as the Miracle Mile at the 1954 Vancouver Games.

Roger Bannister is assisted by Britain's team manager and a policeman after winning the Miracle Mile at the 1954 Vancouver Games ©Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesRoger Bannister is assisted by Britain's team manager and a policeman after winning the Miracle Mile at the 1954 Vancouver Games ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images

As so often in the book, we don't just get the relevant detail, we also get the historical perspective of what the Daily Telegraph described at the time as the "perfect race" - and how it set the tone for other high profile track rivalries for later generations.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.