How sad that Wimbledon’s falling victim to Britain’s booze culture
Midway through the first set of yesterday’s match between Ernests Gulbis and Juan Martin del Potro, a loud bang caught everyone off their guard, including both players. ‘Sorry!’ blurted a well-refreshed young chap in sunglasses and sweatband, frantically trying to control the source of the explosion: a bottle of overflowing champagne.
Kerfuffle over, play resumed on court with Latvian rank outsider Gulbis going on to a big win over the former US Open winner. Equally surprising, perhaps, was what happened next in the grandstand. For rather than showing a morsel of contrition, the man with the fizz simply carried on pouring it out and knocking it back with his chums.
The previous day, another champagne cork flew into the air on Centre Court, landed near the tram-lines and was smartly picked up by a ball-boy who put it in his pocket.
The wimbledon rules may clearly state that ‘glass drinking vessels and corked bottles may not be taken into the Show Courts’ but no one is paying the slightest attention to that edict here, at what some regulars say is the booziest wimbledon they can recall.
From Centre Court showdowns to lesser battles on the periphery of London Sw19, this year’s tournament is one vast drinks party.
True, attendances are up by nearly 10 per cent on last year. True, it’s been hot this week and there are queues round the block for the water fountains, where people patiently wait to top up their plastic bottles.
But the queues are much, much longer for the bars from which the crowds pour forth with cardboard trays of drinks, £25 jugs of Pimm’s, £89 bottles of champagne and £4.70 glasses of Stella artois (sold not by the pint-but by the 330ml). and that’s on top of all the stuff they are bringing with them through the gates that they bought from supermarkets.
Every ticket-holder is allowed to bring in a bottle of wine or two cans of beer but, for many, that is merely an aperitif, a quick sharpener before the main fixture.
whatever the age or profile – young men in shorts and cut-off T- shirts, women in designer sun dresses, old chaps in blazers – and whatever the time of day, half of the people here seem to be wandering about clutching an alcoholic drink.
Now, of course wimbledon would not be wimbledon without the odd glass of Pimm’s. Such is the demand here, though, that they pump it out on draught like Guinness at a St Patrick’s day carnival.
Sadly, it seems that it is now obligatory to treat every summer event – from ascot to Proms in the Park and wimbledon – as, first and foremost, a festival of drink.
yesterday, i joined a queue stretching so far out of the Long Bar, just below Centre Court, that it had merged with a queue for another bar across the concourse.
Sue and Tess, both keen tennis fans from Lancashire, had been hoping to treat themselves to just the one glass of Pimm’s between matches. They were amazed by the tailback. ‘it wasn’t like this last year,’ they told me.
in years gone by, there might have been a mid-afternoon crush for a nice cup of tea. Not any more. For many of this year’s crowd, the challenge is how to get through a set without a refill, let alone endure an entire match.
at every break in play, there is not so much a trickle of people in the gangways as a surge for the loo and/or the nearest bar. Thus the sections of depressingly empty seats that TV viewers can see.
i took a tour of the corridors alongside the Centre Court where Roger Federer was playing.
i ended up walking behind a young woman waving a fresh bottle of champagne while her friend carried the glasses. They joined the long line of beer-carriers and Pimm’s-bearers waiting for the next gap between games, whereupon the uniformed attendant waved everyone through, bottles, glasses and all.
with Centre Court tickets worth £1,000 on the black market and arguably the best tennis player the world has ever seen displaying his art, you would have thought fans would want to watch him rather than concentrate on their next drink.
a colleague at an earlier match sat behind a spectator cheerfully necking a bottle of wine as if it were Robinsons barley water (not that anyone seems to drink much of that any more). it’s the same in the outer courts or on the sprawling grass slope that most call Murray Mound and one or two still call Henman Hill. By late afternoon, it had become a popular spot for a snooze.
No one, it must be said, was a nuisance. Some might have been gently sozzled but none were a menace, unlike the shirtless oiks who started a punch-up at Royal ascot last month.
YET, as one who has been coming here on and off over many years, it is striking how booze has become so integral a part to what was once the famously starchy centrepiece of the English summer season.
For its part, a wimbledon spokesman simply described sales as ‘strong’.
wimbledon fans used to pride themselves on keeping the place tidy and litter-free – not like rubbish-strewn Glastonbury. But at the end of the day’s play, the space under Centre Court seats is wantonly strewn with discarded screw- top wine bottles, plastic Pimm’s cups and sandwich wrappers.
yes, we might all like a half-time beer at the rugby or a pint before (and after) a football match. Nor would many of us fancy our chances against a breathalyser after a long day at a Test match.
But is there any other major sporting fixture where quite so many people choose to spend the whole day attached to their favourite tipple by intravenous drip?
Still, at least it means there’s no longer a queue for the strawberries.