Glasgow 2014 lacks strong identity without a public face of the Games

The 2013 Junior Track World Championships will be the test event in the Velodrome, while Nisa is expected to be up and running for community use in around a year’s time. On the other side of Springfield Road, the athletes’ village is also now well under way; and it, too, will be of benefit to the East End of the city long after the Games are over.

For those of us who witnessed the last-minute panic to ensure Delhi was ready on time to host the 2010 Games, this all comes as reassuring news. Behind the scenes, too, Glasgow 2014 is giving every impression of being run with exemplary efficiency. One potential stumbling block earlier this year was the resignation of John Scott as chief executive, yet the fact that his successor, David Grevemberg, was already employed by the organisation has ensured a seamless transition.

But for all this commendable work, Glasgow 2014 is still a relatively low-key concern. Everyone in the city, indeed in the whole country, must know that it is going to be happening, and there is general agreement that it is a good thing, but there is very little everyday awareness of how plans are progressing. Certainly, compared to the level of attention the London Olympics have received for some years now, Glasgow has so far failed to inspire the same sort of enthusiasm or excitement.

Once the Olympics are out of the way, the Commonwealth Games will have a clearer field, but it’s not just because of next year’s London extravaganza that 2014 has been unable to fire the public imagination. The real reason is that there is as yet no-one involved with the Glasgow organisation who comes anywhere close to matching the role that Sebastian Coe has carried out with such aplomb for London.

No matter how impressive they may look, buildings cannot talk. No matter how often a logo appears on billboards around a city, it cannot inspire the population on its own. And no matter how effectively the management of an organisation are performing, they will be unable just by working well to enthuse the wider public.

The summer of 2014 is not really a long way off, and if we use the London timetable as a guide, Glasgow cannot afford to wait much longer before finding a figurehead who can represent the Games to the city, the country and the Commonwealth.

By the time London was awarded the Olympic Games in 2005, Coe was already in his post as chair of the city’s bid.

As chair of the organising committee, he has since become the very high-profile ‘‘face of the Games’’. When Glasgow’s bid was successful back in 2007, it was headed by Louise Martin, who has since moved on from the post she held then as chair of Commonwealth Games Scotland. Her successor, Michael Cavanagh, will be a figurehead for the Scotland team in 2014, but that is an entirely separate job from being the overall head of the Games.

And Grevemberg will not only have his hands full as chief executive, he is also not the nationally-known sports figure Glasgow needs to find as a frontman or woman.

It needs to be a Scot who is already well known for their success at the Commonwealth Games, and who is widely respected for their standing in sport. Someone such as Allan Wells, perhaps: an Olympic as well as a Commonwealth gold medallist, and one of our greatest ever track-and-field athletes.

Or Liz McColgan, a Commonwealth and world champion at 10,000 metres, and a past chair of Scottish Athletics. Or David Wilkie, who swam to gold medals at the Commonwealth and Olympic Games.

There are many possible candidates, some with stronger claims than others, and none who is obviously head and shoulders above the others. But there is a vacancy there, and the sooner it is filled, the better it will be for Glasgow 2014.