The day James stood firm against Super Brat
Edward James will be laid to rest this week in his beloved Llanelli, an occasion bound to evoke memories of arguably the hissiest of all hissyfits in Anglo-American sport. A centre who played in the same Scarlets’ back line during the Fifties as Carwyn James of Lions fame, he followed his unrelated namesake all the way to the presidency of Llanelli RFC, the inauguration coinciding with the last year of amateurism.
As rugby braced itself for the onslaught of professionalism, President James could have told the Scarlets from personal experience that it would not be a bed of roses. He had witnessed the vulgarity of bigmoney sport from the closest of quarters, at No.1 court during the Wimbledon fortnight.
What happened there in 1981 is still reverberating round the world. It was the day of John McEnroe’s Vesuvian eruption, the day ‘Superbrat’ flipped over a line call.
“You can’t be serious, man,’’ he shouted at James, perched on the umpire’s high chair. As if concerned that he might not have made himself heard, the American raised his voice to fever pitch for a second blast: “You CANNOT be serious.’’
Those four words shot to the top of the sporting lexicon, to be repeated the world over by successive generations. That one outburst cut through the finest from Yogi Berra, the lovable Yankees pitcher whose famous sayings included: “You gotta go to other people’s funerals ‘cos otherwise they won’t come to yours.”
McEnroe didn’t know the meaning of humour, certainly not back then. Instead of keeping his trap shut after the first volley, he stooped to a personal attack on the umpire, calling him “the pits of the world”.
James, unflappable in the midst of a tantrum raised towards crisis point by McEnroe’s demand for the intervention of the tournament referee, Fred Hoyles, told the player in a calm, measured tone: “I am going to award a point against you Mr McEnroe.’’
The crowd’s warm applause had barely subsided when McEnroe told Hoyles: “I’m not going to have a point taken away because this guy is an incompetent fool. I said he is the pits of the world and that’s exactly what he is.’’
How close McEnroe came to being thrown out of Wimbledon only Hoyles knows. Rather than escalate the row by walking off in protest, James, to his eternal credit, stayed put for the rest of an otherwise routine first round match, a straight-sets win over fellow American Tom Gullickson.
Once McEnroe’s fury had run out of steam, James had the last word: “The score is 30-all.’’
Among those at ringside, so to speak, was a 16-year-old schoolgirl who had just finished sitting a raft of O-levels. Caroline James, the eldest of four children, took the day off to watch her father umpire the hotheaded New Yorker with a troublesome reputation.
“It was an unpleasant experience,’’ she says. “I was sitting right behind the chair and in some ways it probably upset me more than my dad.
“I would say that one half of the crowd were pro-McEnroe. With the other half it was a case of: ‘Please, can we get on with the tennis.’ Dad was pretty sanguine about it. He just felt it was a really unfortunate episode.
“He was never one to seek attention and yet that made him famous with a small f. The grandchildren are amazed when they see the clip. Grandpa at Wimbledon on the telly has been quite a novelty.”
Even now, in the year of its 40th anniversary, the incident is still being seen around the globe. The BBC video, all six minutes 16 seconds of it as relayed by YouTube, has been watched more than a million times.
A retired dentist, James never wasted any sleep wondering whether he would receive an apology. “I’m still waiting but I don’t expect him to apologise,’’ he said some ten years ago. “He doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong.”
Only last year the family reached out towards McEnroe following a BBC documentary marking the old champion’s 60th birthday. “I conveyed our best wishes to the BBC on the programme and pointed out that it was a big year for Dad with his 90th,’’ says Caroline. “He thought John was a really good commentator.”
Assuming the word had been passed on, it wouldn’t have taken much for McEnroe to mark the milestone without conceding his opinion that the umpire got it wrong. A brief note apologising, not for the initial outburst, but the personal insults would have been appreciated.
Another commentator, the late David Mercer who followed James’ footsteps from West Wales to umpire Centre Court finals, also had a ‘ringside’ seat that day. “I sometimes wonder whether it would have made a difference to McEnroe’s subsequent behaviour if he had been disqualified during that match,’’ he said. “I like to think it would but I doubt it.”
At the Australian Open nine years later, McEnroe finally pushed his luck too far, prompting Sussex umpire Gerry Armstrong to disqualify him for misconduct. His old Welsh colleague would not have been surprised.
Any rapprochement would now have to be made posthumously. James died before Christmas at the age of 91 and his private funeral takes place at Llanelli crematorium on Friday.
“My dad was very passionate about Llanelli,’’ says Caroline. “It was always the most important town in the world.”