It is that time of year again. Strawberries, cream, green courts, Pimms, the Middletons in the Royal Box, the parade of Slebs given free entry, the tents on the lawns of the park near by where the plebs, ie the Real tennis fans, live in tents for a week and queue for daily tickets. Yes Wimbledon is nearly here.
Last week I was lucky enough to go to Queen's tennis for the Aegon Championship. Fortunately, I was not there when the temperature on the main court was up to 40C and people were keeling over like ninepins. Of course, being British the vast majority of the crowd were unsuitably undressed with masses of exposed white flesh which, in due course, became masses of exposed bright red flesh. No the day I went the temperatures, though warm, had dropped, there was a breeze and it was bearable.
Watching tennis on TV is great and with the latest HD sets etc and the instant red button so you can choose what to watch, it is light years away from the days when I watched it on a battered old black and white tv and you could barely see who was playing. But the actual being there, while much less comfortable than sitting on your sofa with your feet up and a drink to hand when you want it (and the loo of course), is really something else. For a start the grass court is so GREEN, and yes of course it is but the lushness and brightness of it really hits you in the eye when you go to your seats. Then the speed of the ball and the satisfying thwack as the racquet hits it, you do not get the sense of that on TV and live it is quite terrific.
One thing that gets me though when I do go, and I have been to Wimbledon many times in the past, and the last two years at Queens, is the in and out and up and down of the audience. They never sit still, they seem incapable of watching a tennis match right through without a continual ingestion of food and drink. I lost count of the number of times the players had to wait while people found their seats while clutching jugs of Pimms and, what is more, they did not hurry. A couple near me just carried on chatting in the aisle until an irate person told them to sit down. It got worse as the day got on and by late afternoon a party of about seven blokes who had been knocking back the champers all day were getting noisy and talking all the way through the tennis. I know, as I was very close to them, that their seats would have cost them £100 each and yet here they were ignoring the tennis, braying and laughing and getting pissed. Why not just go to the pub? In the end I got really annoyed and, in Lady Bracknell mode, asked them to please keep their voices down. To my astonishment they did and then left at the end of the set to be seen no more.
As people were leaving several said to me 'Jolly good show' Oh Well done my dear' and 'You told them good for you' one said they were sitting right behind them and were getting annoyed. Of course what I really wanted to say was well why didn't you tell them to shut up then, but this is Queens and tennis and so I adopted the British attitude of Oh you are too kind and thank you....
And this is why tennis in the UK was and will be in the doldrums and will be forever more. Sir Andy will probably stop in the next few years, Dan Evans has just failed a drug test, Johanna Konta is a good player and,hopefully, will be a better one, but really we have nobody coming through and once AM goes the Good Old Days of Brits out at the first round of Wimbers will be back.
We do not have the grit and the street fighting attitude that other tennis players have. So many have come from places such as Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Poland where the talent that they possessed was married to a fierce desire for a better life, to leave the poverty behind. Please do not think that I am assuming that all of them had a poor life, but many of them did. In the UK we have young players sponsored by the Lawn Tennis Association, who then partied and did not put in the work and were furious when their funding was withdrawn on the grounds that out till 2am in a nightclub the night before a big match was not the best preparation. We have no hunger for the game.
Tennis clubs are practically the only way you can get a ticket to Wimbledon. The plebs don't stand a chance and if you do manage to get a seat you then sit and look at the whole swathes of empty rows sold to corporate sponsors who spend most of their day in the marquees knocking back champers and gobbling strawberries.
Andy Murray was not one of the chosen ones who got funding from the LTA. His mum mortgaged her house and took out a loan to help both her sons play, they went abroad and worked there. Andy and Jamie are both down to earth level headed Scots who have had to scrap for everything and Judy Murray was excoriated in the press as being a pushy mum who yelled and shouted at all their matches. Of course, Tim Henman, the epitome of Middle England, never swore or shouted or misbehaved or chuntered in his matches. Perhaps if he had he might have done better, nice though he is. His parents would sit in the royal box, and nary a twitch crossed their faces while watching their son, though an occasional clap or Oh Well done could be noted. And this is how tennis parents should behave it seems.
The whole tennis scene in England is still parochial and upper class and full of people who think tennis should be played with spectators drinking tea and eating scones and languidly clapping.
Sometimes, only sometimes, does this change and when it has happened it is usually because of the weather and Wimbledon over running and having to play on what is called the People's Sunday. I personally find that title bloody condescending, why not just call it the Great Unwashed Sunday as that is how it seems to be viewed by the All England Club. But boy, when it happens it is fun. Thousands of people who have never had the chance of a ticket descend on Wimbledon and the place lights up. Singing, cheering, clapping, doing a Mexican Wave, the enthusiasm lights up the whole place. All the players who have experienced this have said how wonderful it all is and how much they have enjoyed it.
OK I know I love Wimbledon and I love the lack of razzmatazz and loud music, I love the all white rule so we do not have to watch horrors like Wawrinkas ghastly pink shorts of last year, I love all that and I love the tradition, but sometimes is is all a bit too darn English.
And I freely admit that if they started jazzing it up I would be the first to complain so perhaps I should just shut up.
New balls please...
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