Still queueing but getting closer… Not long to go now… Enjoying a glass of bubbles while waiting to get tickets… And so we wait… Fingers crossed we get a Grounds pass... Up at 6am just to get in a queue - how British!
Who’d have thought anyone would miss the experience of waiting in a long, labyrinthine line for hours on end? But for many tennis fans, the experience of queueing for daily admission at The Championships, inching along towards the Holy Grail of the turnstiles, is a ritual on a par with counting the days to payday or the number of sleeps until Christmas.
The Queue has capital letter status because it is a Wimbledon institution, an orderly, sunny-natured party on the move, where the timeless tournament spirit descends in the form of order maintained by cheery Honorary Stewards according to the Queue’s own Official Code of Conduct (no smoking, no gazebos, no food deliveries, music or ball games after 10pm). Even the rules give an impression of the fun vibe.
Covid-19 restrictions may have prevented this year's mini-tennis festival, but the Queue-munity spirit is still alive and chattering in the virtual sphere, and making plans to play the waiting game again when this cherished tradition returns. If there’s one quality Queuers share, or have elevated to an art form, it’s patience.
This year, tents and sleeping bags may be in mothballs, but veteran queuers are sharing memories on social media, re-posting images of their 'I Queued In The Rain' badge from Wimbledon 2019 or their collection of official Queue Cards, recreating that quintessential audio-visual backdrop that is such a key emotional dimension to each day at The Championships.
To be a Queuer is to belong to a club with lifelong membership, albeit with different tiers of status according to whether you are part of the camping fraternity, you make a pilgrimage each year with friends and family, or you joined once on a let’s-see-what-it’s-all-about basis.
“Missing the prospect of it this year has prompted me to reconnect with the first friend I queued with,” recalls one fan. “We reminisced about standing on the pavement for ages, racing to take up position on an outside court where John McEnroe scraped his way through a long, testy match. We couldn’t remember who he played, or even the result, but we both remembered our packed lunch remained squashed down by our feet in the throng! We didn't move for several hours, we were mesmerised.”
The whole business of camping overnight in a line of tents, forging new friendships, debating the merits of the current field and soaking up the camaraderie has a long history. Of course it does, it’s Wimbledon.
Queue savviness now extends to knowing the local gym which offers its shower facilities for the price of a day pass or the convenience store that will charge your phone for a small fee, but that logistical approach to Queue comforts was initiated half a century ago by Bob and Joan Graham. Another important 50th anniversary milestone to note this year.
In 1971 the couple drove down from Lancashire in “Peanut”, their Austin A30 van. Observing the ramshackle overnight camping scene along Somerset Road, Bob measured up the pavement dimensions and returned well-equipped for the following Championships with a made-to-measure portable shelter, one side of which could be attached to Peanut and the other to the perimeter wall of the AELTC. The Grahams always said they made many friends during the torrential rain that afflicted the 1972 event.
Borgmania, and the mesmerising “Ice and Fire” rivalry with the Swede's nemesis John McEnroe, inspired an explosion of overnight camping on the pavements of Church Road and Somerset Road and the introduction of fancy dress in the form of wigs and headbands. The Queue later moved inside Wimbledon Park with more space for late-night football tournaments, and for sponsors to contribute engaging side shows. Rafa Nadal's uncle Toni and Judy Murray had a stint serving coffee to the punters.
Ten years ago, The Queue’s significance was honoured with a headline exhibition at the Wimbledon Museum, dedicated to the antics of diehard fans who are prepared to queue day after day, night after night, year after year, to get Show Court tickets or Grounds passes. It celebrated fans such as Ruth Hartgill of Reigate, for whom the cancellation of the 2020 Championships ended her remarkable run of 71 consecutive annual visits, starting in 1949.
The Queuers’ world has also been commemorated in book form in Ben Chatfield’s Standing in Line: 30 Years of Obsessive Queueing at Wimbledon and in Richard Jones’s richly visual coffee-table tome, The People’s Wimbledon: Memories & Memorabilia.
The thing all Queuers, past, present and future, know for sure is that patience is well rewarded. Almost 100 years ago, Jessica Bousfield of Huntington, New York, was visiting relatives in Britain during the inaugural Championships on the current site in Church Road when she decided over lunch in her London hotel to pop down to Wimbledon.
“We stood in line for an hour, but at last got in,” she wrote in a letter home. Her stoicism earned her a Centre Court seat to see the gentlemen’s singles and doubles final, followed by the ladies’ singles final in which Suzanne Lenglen captured her fourth consecutive title. Definitely something to write home about.
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