On a chilly summer morning of July 2005, I set out to get a load of what I had seen only in television so far, the Wimbledon. After an hour’s journey through the train & London tube I set foot on South fields station, decorated in line with the extravaganza that was on show during that part of the year.
A short walk took me to a lawn couple of miles away from the park which was crowded with people waiting in queue for day tickets to Wimbledon. When the queue card I got read the number 5428, I realized that I had remote chances of getting into the park as I had read that they issue a maximum of 5000 day tickets a day. Not so disappointed, I started walking back out of the lawn thinking of going to numerous other places in London that I had not visited. Surprised to see a group of men walking out of the park when the crowd was swarming in, a friendly usher came to me asking the reason for my departure. When I cited my queue card number as the reason, he told me to have faith in him and go and join the queue again. Judging my nationality by appearance, he told that my presence in Wimbledon was important, especially to cheer my country men who were playing that day. Little did I realize then that this would be a once (or once more a year later) in a life time experience. By the time I joined the queue again, I had lost a couple of hundred places to others and later there were hundreds of people behind me in the queue!
After collecting tickets in the counter located in the end of the 3-mile long queue that ended in the park, I wandered about between courts 2 & 18, checking the schedule of play, lying down in the Henman Hill watching the televised version of a court one match, browsing though matches in various courts.
One of the courts
When I walked back to the centre court to take a glimpse of what was happening with the match between Federer & Kiefer ,I realized that fans do get due importance in Wimbledon. A request from a friend of mine to get a picture of the world famous centre court, the ticket holders to which are selected based on lots months ahead of the game every year, was gently heeded. When I got to get close with a lot of player, take their snaps, and collect autographs, I found that their security personnel were quite fan-friendly too, yet quite stern & focussed on their prime task of protecting the players. Arrangements were made to provide centre court & court one tickets, returned by the fan who were done watching the matches to other fans at cheaper prices, simply meant that Wimbledon wants more fans to experience the royalty of the centre court. I was also able to easily sense that the day tickets were offered to more than 5000 fans, almost to everyone who came to Wimbledon; perhaps the organizers did not want anyone to go back disappointed not getting tickets. The organizers had left no stone unturned in ensuring that the visiting fans had a pleasant comfortable stay in the Wimbledon. They played a perfect host. After a long day, when I reached the Southfields station after spending few more hours in the Wimbledon Park, I realized that I had the experience of lifetime. I made it a point to visit Wimbledon the year after as well, the last year of my stay in London.
People remember Wimbledon for its epic matches, more recently the one between Roger Federer & Rafael Nadal, the five-set history. But my Wimbledon experience will stay in my memory for its fan-friendliness, starting from the usher who encouraged me to get back on the queue to the security personnel in front of the centre court who saw the eagerness in our eyes and kindly acceded to allow us for a taking a snapshot of the centre court, more than the matches I watched.
It is not for no reason; Wimbledon is called the King of Slams!!!
