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Published: August 3rd 2005
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One thing that can be said about the English is that they are polite and orderly ... and they love a good queue. So we should not have been shocked when we arrived at Wimbledon Park at 6.30am on a Saturday morning in June and were given a card containing our number in the queue and a substantial booklet entitled "A guide to queuing at the Wimbledon Championships". I suspect this same scene in Australia would have been more than a little chaotic, with people trying to save spots for their mates and a bit of jostling for position going on. But not in England!
We had arrived early to join the hordes lining up to secure general admission tickets to see the tennis at Wimbledon. The more enthusiastic punters had camped out overnight in the hope of scoring tickets to centre court and court one and the roadside was littered with tents, sleeping bags, empty wine bottles and more than a few Australians.
I was dreading waiting in line for countless hours this early on a saturday morning but with the help of a newspaper, a swift moving line and the unbelievably enthusiastic and helpful marshalls we soon
found ourselves inside the gates of the holding pen at the illustrious Wimbledon Tennis Club.
After half an hour a voice came over the loud speaker to let us know that the main gates were about to open and could we please continue on in an orderly manner. No running allowed! To make sure of it a line of men smartly dressed in blue suits and pilot-style hats marched along in front of the excited and enthusiastic crowd. Now thats orderly and civilised.
We made our way to court two where we were allowed into the 'standing room only' area and settled in for the wait until the first match started. Unfortunately my dream of sitting under a bright blue sky with the sun kissing my shoulders was not to be. The grey and muggy morning had turned into grey and chilly day. Gotta love the English summer! The first match was Juan Carlos Ferrera vs Florian Mayer and it was a close match with lots of good quality tennis played, which was very exciting to watch. However after over two hours of watching a tennis ball being hit backwards and forwards we were keen to soak up
some of the atmosphere around the complex. As we were leaving we were stopped by a line of security guards and we realised that Lindsay Davenport was strolling past less than a metre away on the way to her match. One of the really nice things about Wimbledon is just how close up you can get to the stars. A few hours later we were an arms length away from Todd Woodbridge and then found oursleves pointing our long lens at John McEnroe and Boris Becker (and their atrocious hair-dos) who were standing atop one of the roofs.
Wimbledon is as much about the atmosphere as the tennis so we soaked it up in one of the many bars with a pimms and lemonade (and a beer for Andrew) ......although we did avoid the strawberries and cream after being told they come with condensed milk instead of real cream - oh the dissapointment! We wandered through the obligatory souvenir shop and made our way past the crowds of picnicers to Henman Hill - renamed Murray Mound in 2005 after the latest young English hopeful. As we were lining up to see our second match of the day Jurgen Melzer vs Guillermo Coria, Murray was playing David Nalbandian on centre court and it was being beamed to the huge crowd who had gathered on 'the hill'. The atmosphere was electric as the enthusiastic English cheered and yelled for their latest hope. Sadly as you will all know by know disappointment was once again the order of the day for the English in this year's chamionships and I suspect the cheering would have stopped soon after we left for the day.
The view from court 18 which is right next to the hill is stunning, over looking many of the other courts and further down towards Wimbledon itself and the surrounding suburbs. After watching a few sets of once again very good tennis as well being occasionally distracted by the beautiful view we decided to call it a day. It was getting quite chilly by now and we had somewhere else to be that night.
Wimbledon certainly did not disappoint despite the early start and the very long queue. In fatc I think the experience added to the day. That said if we were offered centre court tickets next year with a reserved seat and no queuing I think we'd jump at the chance!
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virginia manson
non-member comment
wow
to think I went past Wimbledon station in the train and never went to a match - how stupid was I. Sounds great. Wait until winter and see if the queues are outside the butcher shops in the snow and hail, just to get that winter turkey - but then that was 1970 and they probably are under cover now. Love Mum M.