Wimbledon

Every year for the last week in June and the first few days of July things change in the UK. The usually deserted public tennis courts are heaving with people of all ages trying to emulate what they have just watched on TV and the sales of strawberries and cream rocket. British newspapers suddenly remember that there is a sport other than football to write about and the BBC puts its antiques and house programmes on hold to show us wall to wall coverage. Yes, it's time for Wimbledon again.


Some of us have been tootling along to the hallowed turf of the AELTCC since the days when for the price of a ground admission ticket you could stand and watch the greats battle it out on Centre Court. Now we get ourselves organised with a tent and sleep on the pavement overnight to ensure a prized ticket to the show court of our choice.

Much has changed both in the way tennis is played and in the courts and facilities of the club itself but some things remain constant. Centre Court may be under renovation but the splendid ivy-clad entrance will still be there. The flowers in the purple and green Wimbledon colours will bloom in profusion. The stewards will be unfailingly charming and helpful. Crowds will "oo" and "ah" and cheer great shots while remaining absolutely silent during rallies.

It's all very British and an iconic part of the English summer. Even the rain delays are counted as part of the scene and in some ways we feel a bit cheated if we don't get at least one.


When the Championships are not being played it's still a great place to visit to absorb some of the history and atmosphere. On a sunny day in February this year juanita and I met up there to do the tour. We've both been there many times before and visted the museum last year but wanted to see the Terracotta Warriors while they were on show and you had to do the tour to see them. We also wanted to see if this time they'd have Rafa's piratas on display in the musuem since they were mysteriously missing the last time.

The first part of the tour takes you around to number one court but since we'd both seen that on many occasions we drifted off into a reverie while the history of the championships was recounted and thus took no pictures. It started to get more interesting when we were shown around behind the scenes.

Because Centre Court was a building site at the time we went we got to see the TV studio where Sue Barker does her bit for the BBC every year. It may look glam on the TV but the reality is a lot more tatty. I wanted to sit on all the chairs just in case one of them had supported Rafa's botty but juanita pointed out that they'd probably had Fed's behind on them as well so I decided not to bother.

We were then taken around the back past the entrance Rafa always uses and from there into the players area.


Here is a member of the tour group showing her distaste at the lack of piratas in the museum

Here's where they can sit outside and relax should the weather permit

In general the place looked like a building site since they were faffing around with building a new Number 2 court as well as continuing the work on the Centre Court roof. I'm assuming that in the last few months they have cleaned up more than a little (and put pots of flowers in front of the bits that are still not fit to be seen).

For those interested in the grass we were told that they rarely re-turf because it's the root system that gives the consistent bounce. They just sort of plough up the top layer and re-seed in October. Here's what it looked like on Number 1 court in February. One assumes they'll have given it a bit of a trim now.


A fair few of the Vamos Brigade will be camping out again this year in the hope of getting tickets to his matches so we can cheer him on to what we all hope will be his second grass court title of the year and his first Wimbledon crown.

Buena suerte, Rafa