The Queue at Wimbledon is a phenomenon that never fails to astonish first-time visitors. Snaking around Wimbledon Park in an orderly formation, manned by good-humoured Honorary Stewards, and endured in a spirit of fun and camaraderie, it’s an integral part of The Championships experience.
The word ‘queue’ comes from the Old French ‘cue’ meaning tail, ultimately from Latin. From about 1837, it came into use in English in reference to a line of people.
A queue quickly became a core element of the business of Going to The Championships – there are lovely pictures of women in bonnets amassed for miles along the pavement on Church Road in 1922 safeguarded by police horses – and thus The Queue was honoured with capital letters.
In 2011, it even starred in its own headline exhibition in the Wimbledon Museum.
Back in 1954, the exciting news was that The Championships gained another queue, this one inside the Grounds and aiming for the window of the brand-new Ticket Resale kiosk. This initiated a new custom of queueing in order to re-queue where, again, blankets and towels would be laid down, picnics enjoyed, Pimm’s sipped and lifelong friends made.
This year we celebrate 70 years since Ticket Resale was introduced. Fans with Grounds passes could queue up for Show Court tickets that had been left by departing spectators in boxes provided at the exits from Centre Court and No.1 Court. Proceeds from the resale went to the National Playing Fields Association.
Today the Ticket Resale queue inches slowly forward as the tickets for Centre Court, No.1 Court and No.2 Court start trickling in to be re-sold (generally early evening).
Good things come to those who wait, so the saying goes, and they certainly come to those Queuers who cannily hotfoot it up the steps of St Mary’s Walk to the Ticket Resale queue.
For here beats the emotional heart of The Championships, a place where you feel in the middle of the action and appreciate that tennis is ‘a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity,’ as Billie Jean King once famously quipped.
Seventy years ago, pavements thronged with queuers keen to see the American 1950s teen sensation, Maureen ‘Little Mo’ Connolly (main picture), who was favourite to win her third consecutive ladies’ singles title.
The Centre Court faithful have seen a parade of tennis prodigies down the years – Carlos Alcaraz, Maria Sharapova, Boris Becker, Martina Hingis, Steffi Graf and Bjorn Borg – but nothing compares to the meteoric-like blaze of glory with which the 18-year-old Connolly became the first woman in history to win a calendar Grand Slam in 1953.
A British competitor described Connolly as being ‘magnificently accurate with her groundstrokes’. The nickname ‘Little Mo’ was a play on words aligning the 5ft 4in Californian’s firepower with ‘Mighty Mo’, the battleship USS Missouri.
Aptly so, as it was against a fleet of all-star American competitors that she won her three Wimbledon titles, defeating Louise Brough in 1952 and 1954, with Doris Hart experiencing a straight-sets defeat in 1953.
Rationing in the UK following the Second World War finally ended in 1954, and anchovy and egg bridge rolls were provided for players at tea time (according to Richard Jones’ treasure-trove book of reminiscences, The People’s Wimbledon).
After wartime deprivation, the world was becoming an easier, exciting place to live. Bill Haley & His Comets were rocking around the clock, the TV dinner was introduced as a concept, the first ‘drip-brew’ coffeemaker was patented, Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile, and Ian Fleming published Live and Let Die.
Heartbreakingly, a few weeks after her third Wimbledon triumph, Connolly was struck by a lorry while riding her horse. The impact crushed her right leg and she never played tennis again. Her brilliant, blazing career lasted just four years.
It’s hard to think of another player who had such a profound impact on the sport in such a short timespan. At the age of 31, Connolly was diagnosed with cancer and died three years later.
