Why I hate Wimbledon…

This 136-year-old institution that is the Wimbledon tennis championships is revered throughout the world for its history and tradition but has failed to produce a homegrown male singles winner since the year Edward VIII abdicated.

On Sunday 7 July a nation who probably would not watch a Davis Cup tie if it were being played in their back garden, will hope to witness Andy Murray ending the longest and most embarrassing barren spell in British sporting history. It is now 77 years since Fred Perry last won the Gentlemen’s Singles title, as it is still absurdly named (imagine Usain Bolt being described as the Gentleman’s 100 metres champion).

Such anachronisms have come to define this annual festival of pomp and Pimms, summer hats and strawberries. Only at Wimbledon is the sport in question referred to as lawn tennis and the championships is run by the quaintly titled All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club. Why not go the whole hog and prefix it with Ye Olde? This year their event will generate around £55m for the Lawn Tennis Association whose job it is to discover and nurture the British stars of the future. It is a task at which they have not exactly excelled.

Elitism stalks the manicured lawns of SW19 as the Pimms and parasol brigade enjoy their annual exposure to competitive sport.

Since Perry’s triumph in 1936, only two British-born men have threatened to emulate him and neither were LTA products. Last year’s runner-up Murray honed his skills not on the playing fields of Great Britain but on the clay courts of Barcelona and Tim Henman was coached as a youngster by a privately-funded tennis school. Only last weekend the latter, a four times Wimbledon semi-finalist, declared himself to be “fed up with being patient” as the LTA’s fruitless search goes on. To be fair, it has not been fruitless for the organisation’s outgoing chief executive Roger Draper who took home a £200,000 bonus last year.

Pigeons and Pimms

This absurd gravy train may be about to be derailed though as Sport England, who hold the tax funded purse strings, have announced that the LTA could face further cuts in its grants in the light of the ongoing lack of success. Since 2009 the number of people inspired to pick up a tennis racket has fallen by nearly 20 per cent. Maybe Draper should have spent his bonus on a job lot at Sports Direct and handed them out in the inner cities.

While the all conquering Williams sisters may be “Straight Outta Compton”, they wouldn’t get anywhere near Wimbledon if they were “Straight Outta Camden”. Elitism stalks the manicured lawns of SW19 as the Pimms and parasol brigade enjoy their annual exposure to competitive sport. While the genuine tennis fans watch the show court programme from the safe distance of Henman Hill, the debenture holders (those who haven’t resold their tickets at prices that would make the ubiquitous touts blush) cram in the odd set between the institutionalised quaffing and gorging. Football fans rightly complain about the empty corporate seats at Wembley during England games but it was Wimbledon that pioneered prawn-sandwich culture.

The event kicks off with 128 ‘gentlemen’ and the same number of ‘ladies’ competing in the first round, which enables a disproportionate number of plucky Brit wild cards to find themselves lining up as cannon fodder.

I recall Henman having to contest a post-luncheon semi-final amid a near funereal silence on centre court, in stark contrast to the vociferous backing of the hundreds gathered on his eponymous hill. In recent years the “middle Sundays” forced by rain, and last year’s Olympic competition, over which Wimbledon had no ticketing control, have produced among the most passionate atmospheres ever witnessed at the All England Club where, normally, a ballboy’s mishap or the arrival of a pigeon with a dodgy sat-nav is enough to reduce the entire gallery to inexplicable hysterics.

This is not helped by the collusion of television commentators who seem to think that explosions of starry eyed mirth are an acceptable way to describe moments of skill and agility during a sporting contest. We football commentators would never get away with it; imagine tuning in to Sky Sports and hearing: “Bale steps up…oh, ho ho ho…. ah ha ha….hee hee hee…” Some of these cheerleaders are British former players who have benefitted enormously from the fact they would probably have hardly played a game in the tournament if the Wimbledon draw were not so large. The event kicks off with 128 “gentlemen” and the same number of “ladies” competing in the first round, which enables a disproportionate number of plucky Brit wild cards to find themselves lining up as cannon fodder in the succession of tediously uncompetitive matches that follow during the first week. In the centre court commentary box, reverence rather than critical analysis seems to be the editorial standpoint.

Every one of these 256 competitors is forced to conform to the predominantly all-white dress code, another unnecessary conceit which spread to other clubs around the country. I can remember being brusquely hauled off a court in Surrey as a teenager for the unpardonable sin of wearing a blue top; another future Wimbledon champion lost to the sport.

Even the spectators are not immune from the All England Club’s fashion police. Last year they issued a series of clothing guidelines for their own members which reads like the prospectus for a minor public school: “the dress standard for gentlemen is lounge suit or tailored jacket, shirt, tie, trousers and dress shoes. Ladies are expected to dress to a similar standard.” So, if a debenture holder flogs you a centre court ticket for a grand make sure you don’t turn up in a T-shirt, jeans or trainers or you’ll end up paying way over the odds for a spot on Henman Hill. Strapless tops or hoodies would presumably result in the very fabric of society imploding in front of our eyes.

Strapless tops or hoodies would presumably result in the very fabric of society imploding in front of our eyes.

If all of this has left you with an image of me as an embittered tennis hater with an axe to grind, I am sorry to disappoint you by saying that I would like nothing better than to see Britain at the forefront of the sport (as it stands, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Slovenia have more Top 200 players than us).

I also fervently hope that Murray triumphs on 7 July, not as the culmination of a festival of tennis but as a two-fingered riposte to a system which seems unable or unwilling to produce his like. Wimbledon, for me, is a cosy, two week love-in which provides a charming backdrop to the exploits of foreign superstars. It has little or no connection with the majority of the British sporting public who can enjoy it for a fortnight before moving on to more pressing matters such as the Ashes series or the latest Premier League transfer speculation.

The statistics appear to show that, for all its status as a national institution, Wimbledon has had little impact in encouraging young people to get out onto a court and its handsome profits have failed to rectify the sad fact that, Murray apart, we remain the laughing stock of world tennis.

New balls please!

John Anderson’s updated book A Great Face For Radio is published on 1 August. You can follow him on Twitter @GreatFaceRadio