Wimbledon crowds are essentially twats: Discuss

[MattBackHome]

You get the feeling most are there because it's wimbledon, rather than to watch tennis.

I agree with this. Populated by and large by people who don't have a clue about anything outside of Queen's and All-England, Sue Barker and whoever is playing 'Plucky Brit Quarter Finalist' in the Panto this year.

I admit to being touched the year that the crowd fell in love with Ivanisevic, however - but that was more to do with him rather than them.

 

[vegster]

Why is it that during some rallies, someone, usually a woman, finds that a point/shot so mindblowing they have to let out a piercing shriek as if they have just been stabbed ?

Are their lives so shallow and empty that to lose that point would seem like the end of the world ?

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Playing on GRASS? What's that all about?

Every other world class tennis tournament is played on a surface that has been prepared for the specific purpose of making the sport recognisably the same game wherever it is played. Champions are champions because they are the best players in the world.

Only in England do we prepare a surface that harks back to the days of country house gardens, tended by aged retainers who knew more about roses and compost than topspin.

World class players fail at Wimbledon, because they can't adjust to the playing surface. If that happened in any other major sport, we'd be ashamed. We'd be demanding changes. But not at Wimbledon. We pin all our hopes of British success on the possibility that Johnny or Hannah Foreigner might not be able to "adjust to grass".

This is WRONG.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

If you read the thread through you would have read .

And how would I have done that exactly? Transported myself into the future to see the responses relating to getting tickets posted after my post?

 

[Gazwag]

Playing on GRASS? What's that all about?

It how all grand slam tennis were originally played (except the French I believe who started on crushed brick).

Besides its so much better on the body than other surfaces, Nedal might still have working knees had he played on grass more

 

[Austrian Gull]

Playing on GRASS? What's that all about?


This is WRONG.

It's got to be better than bloody clay courts - two players just standing at the baseline, rallies lasting 40 shots. Give me a good crash bam wallop on grass any day.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

It how all grand slam tennis were originally played (except the French I believe who started on crushed brick).

So?

That's the argument that Boris Johnson used when he promised an olympics that would recreate the spirit of whiff-whaff.

 

[Gazwag]

So all sailing races must be in a swimming pool so the best always win without the risk of a rough day, all cricket matches must be on a surface the same, the groundsman must not make it spinner friendly for example, golf must only be played when there is no wind.

Most players that win at wimbledon are the best is the world, as history shows.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Whats more sad.

Dressing up once a year for Wimbledon or getting you message board name on the back of a football shirt?

 

[Easy 10]

well I think the grass looks really NICE.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

well I think the grass looks really NICE.

I'm not saying it doesn't.

I particularly like the way the lush green surface reflects off the strawberries.

 

[Stumpy Tim]

Whats more sad.

Dressing up once a year for Wimbledon or getting you message board name on the back of a football shirt?

Agree 100%

 

[pasty]

Whats more sad.

Dressing up once a year for Wimbledon or getting you message board name on the back of a football shirt?

I don't hold with that. My nickname was "pasty" long before NSC even existed, so if I have that on the back of my shirt, it's sod all to do with NSC.

So ner-di-ner-di-plop-plop

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

The spectators on Centre Court who STILL think it's funny to wait until the crowd have just about stopped cheering a point in a game between Andy Murray and just about anyone, before shouting out wittily "COME ON TIM!" e.

I went on Monday - just a bog standard sports fan in bog standard seats on No1 Court. Had a great day - atmosphere reminded me of Lords but with more 50 year old women - all seemingly called Christine for some reason.

Saw some good tennis, had a day out with Mrs TRHK and celebrated getting a job the day before in some style.

Agree about the "Come on Tim" thing, but a good variation on Monday. Non-event Brit player called James Ward. Getting thrashed by World #7. Wag shouts out "Come on James". A few games latter same wag shouts "Come on Jamie", a game or two on and "Come on Jim", then Jimmy, then Jimbo and so on until by the end of the match he piped up with "Come on The J Dog". Was very funny piss-take of all the "Come on Andy/Tim" brigade.

 

[Danny-Boy]

Spot on. As well as the 2001 Wimbledon Final, I've done the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan, World Athletics Championships in Paris, 2004 Athens Olympic Games, will be joining the Barmy Army for the Durban test in SA starting on Boxing Day (it was either that or Orient at Withdean), and am hoping to make the last game of the Lions tour in a couple of weeks time.

I like the difference in attitudes between the fans of different sports. It would be as inappropriate for a football referee to ask the crowd to remain quiet when a player is in a position to shoot as it would be for tennis supporters to start a chant of 'Who's the wanker in the chair?'

Difficulties arise when people take one set of behavioural values in a sport and apply them to another. Cricket has had this issue with the arrival of a different type of spectator for 20/20 matches than those who would normally attend a 4 day county championship match.

Glamorgan cricketer Robert Croft described it this way in 2007 after he'd been verbally abused during a 20/20 game:

"Why does it happen? Well, I think it's a game that attracts a younger crowd and maybe fans of other sports who come along because their sport is not on at the time. They have a drink and then get rowdy. Cricket is traditionally a gentleman's game - players play very hard on the field but it's done in an atmosphere where fans can bring food along, have some wine or beer, enjoy the cricket and leave in a good manner. I'm just concerned it could be starting to move down the wrong direction."

As far as Wimbledon goes, some of the supporters have been queueing up overnight to get tickets to watch the games. If they're rather more reserved than might be expected during afternoon play, there's probably an easy enough explanation.

Interesting point about cricket, which i still manage to play the odd game of, although approaching my bus-pass.

As a Surrey supporter I thought it was extremely ironic, at a Sussex-Surrey game at Hove a couple of years ago, that a Surrey player reported the Surrey team were the subject of drunken homophobic abuse from some "modern" Sussex supporters. Case of pot calling....

It will be interesting to see if any brave Sussex fans try that out at Hove over the next four days, against the Aussies. I think they might get more than a mild rebuke in the "Argus", more like a hard boot up the Botany Bay..

 

[Man of Harveys]

Seems like a thread with a teeny bit of chip on its shoulder to me...I love Wimbledon, mainly sadly only from afar - I once queued up after work once to get in late but that's it. Yes, the union jack cartoon patrotism thing is silly but it is a benign version of it, mainly because I think it's an acknowledgement that the Americans or Russians or Swiss bloke always win anyway. And Federer vs Nadal last year was one of the most gripping sport events I can ever remember watching.

Now I'm f***ed if I'm going to let some posh birds d'un certain age from Surrey pissed up on Sancerre and a load of very rich American tourists spoil my enjoyment of that - quite the opposite, I think they're all part of the atmos of it.

 

[skipper734]

The clue is in the name" Lawn Tennis ". The foreign monkeys play something else, we allow them to come here once a year and ruin British players.
It's a derivative of a Frog game anyway,the English just took it outside and away from the nasty hard surfaces that had penthouses,galleries, tambours and the like to bounce off.

 

[Danny-Boy]

Playing on GRASS? What's that all about?

Every other world class tennis tournament is played on a surface that has been prepared for the specific purpose of making the sport recognisably the same game wherever it is played. Champions are champions because they are the best players in the world.

Only in England do we prepare a surface that harks back to the days of country house gardens, tended by aged retainers who knew more about roses and compost than topspin.

World class players fail at Wimbledon, because they can't adjust to the playing surface. If that happened in any other major sport, we'd be ashamed. We'd be demanding changes. But not at Wimbledon. We pin all our hopes of British success on the possibility that Johnny or Hannah Foreigner might not be able to "adjust to grass".

This is WRONG.

I beg to differ Lord B, tennis was originally known as "lawn tennis" because apart from the public courts, it was played on the lawns of country houses. It would nerver have developed if players had not been able, in those Victorian days, to move around on a "giving" surface, long before roads were properly paved. Do you think they could have invented tennis on cobbles?

All that has happened is that for climatic reasons, other countries have had to switch to artificial surfaces over the years. Both the US and Australia legs of the Grand slam were formerly played on grass, the US at Forest Hills.

The French has always i believe been played on clay, but since most courts were built for the Brits down on the cote D'Azur originally, that's hardly surprising. The fact is that tennis on grass looks fantastic, it was a happy coincidence that colour TV came to the UK at the same time the game went open, in 1968. It televises to me like no other sport.

I miss the old open-ness of wimbledon which I used to go to regularly in the days of Newcombe and roche, Ivan lendl Borg and the stars of the 1970's. But the women then wre not a patch looks-wise on the babes of today.

Navratilova versus Sharapova? No contest...

 

[Husty]

Im inclined to agree, any sport played on grass is f***ing gay :/

 

[Don Quixote]

We invented Tennis not the French.