Commonwealth Games Glasgow 2014

07 August 2014

I have just returned from an amazing experience working at the games as a sports massage practitioner. I was based in the Athletes Medical room for Netball at the SECC venue and worked as part of the medical team which consisted of doctors, nurses and physios. We provided care for athletes and technical staff while they were at the venue, warming up and competing. The team doctors and physios would use our room if they needed to treat an athlete so you never knew who would be coming in next.

I spent most of my time treating the netball umpires pre and post event and post event massage for the netball players who would come in a whole team at a time so physios would all jump in to help.

A highlight for me was when I was massaging one leg while the teams physio was doing the other leg and the athlete asked her to do what I was doing ! Another of our duties was to provide care if needed for the gymnasts who were warming up in the hall next to our medical room, they enjoyed loud up tempo sounds as they prepared so the background music for my treatments was slightly different to my usual choice!

We were also responsible for medical cover on field of play and due to black spots where the walkie talkies didn’t work, a “runner” was needed as well as doctor and physio, and I filled that role taking turns with the nurse so we worked half a game each. Every day before shift we would have spinal board practice so we were ready if a casualty happened, luckily this was never needed.

After my field of play duty during the England v Barbados game I checked my phone and had loads of messages from family and friends who had seen me on TV, fame at last, my lovely brother even tweeted a picture ! (See my Twitter page @EarlJackie)To add to my exposure that day a story was published in my local paper http://bit.ly/1nTZ6TZ Pin badges were the currency of the Games, athletes and their teams were exchanging their country pins and this is what I charged for a treatment ! By the end I had accumulated quite a few and I became aware of “pin envy” from those around me, coming home and seeing how much some of them are selling for on Ebay I now understand why!