Wimbledon officials set to stamp out any football interruptions

Wimbledon’s stewards and chair umpires face a challenging day as the world’s biggest tennis tournament goes head-to-head with a major England football match for the first time since 2006.

The All England Club’s policy throughout the tournament has been to keep these 13½ acres a football-free zone. That will become much more difficult today, with England facing Sweden in the World Cup quarter-finals at 3pm, and officials will be looking to clamp down on any distracting behaviour by fans.

At a production of Titanic: The Musical in Nottingham on Tuesday night, two women seated in the front row disturbed actors and fellow audience members by shouting “Yes!” every time a penalty was scored.

It seems entirely plausible that something similar could happen in SW19 today – especially if England are successful in their last-eight tie.

Any disturbance in the crowd will be harshly dealt with by the stewards, who are mostly drawn from the military, while umpires will use walkie-talkies to communicate with staff and control the periphery.

In the case of Titanic: The Musical, the cast gathered themselves and proceeded towards the show’s poignant if ultimately unsurprising conclusion. Yet live sport like tennis can be directly affected by people calling out when the ball is in

play, and players hate to be distracted from their task.

Simona Halep, the world No 1 from Romania, left Centre Court in a state of frustration a year ago when an overexcited fan interrupted the final point of her dramatic loss to Britain’s Johanna Konta, causing her to hesitate on her last shot of the match. Chair umpire Kader Nouni ruled that the point must stand.

It is easy to see hospitality ticketholders retreating to their tents to follow England

This is not the first time that football and tennis have collided, but it is the first since smartphone technology became ubiquitous, so that fans can potentially watch the football on their handheld devices.

It is easy to see hospitality ticketholders – who make up five per cent of the Wimbledon audience – retreating to their tents to follow the England team. This could lead to some empty seats on the show courts through the afternoon. Meanwhile, expect Henman Hill to be substantially less populated than normal.

A similar situation developed in 2006, as a 19-year-old Andy Murray took on third seed Andy Roddick on Centre Court, scoring what was then the best win of his nascent career, while England were losing to Portugal on penalties in a World Cup quarter-final in Gelsenkirchen.

As one live blog reported at the time: “You get the sense that the crowd’s attention is not fully on the match as there’s a little bit of a buzz around Centre Court… A mobile phone tinkles – probably someone telling their mate that it’s extra time in the England v Portugal game – forcing the umpire to remind the crowd to switch off their phones.”

As Murray told reporters after his third-round win: “I knew it was 0-0 when I went on and [Wayne] Rooney had been sent off. I’m surprised they lost on penalties, but it’s disappointing. It would have been great for England to win the World Cup, it would have been great for British sport, but now I’m going to have to try and win here.”