Off The Net: Surviving Wimbledon's Queue

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  • Approximately 10,000 people queue at Wimbledon daily.

    Sports fans will often go to great extremes to get a ticket for their favourite event, but surely no one goes more above and beyond than a Wimbledon tennis fan queuing for an eternity to merely get into the grounds. On the first day of this year’s Championships, Off The Net investigated the brilliantly bizarre world of the Wimbledon ticket queue – an endless line full of thousands of people from around the world, and now so famous it even has an official name — ‘The Queue for The Championships 2015’.

    The British Hunger Games

    Upon exit from the closest tube stop to Wimbledon, passengers bolted out of the station and down the road — it was only 6.30am, but already the race to the queue was on. And righty so. The sheer influx of people on the street meant that a five minute amble to the queue could potentially cost you an extra hour of queuing time and potentially deny you from potentially getting into the grounds where you could see a tennis match…potentially. The were more unknowns than the First Round wildcards and that was all part of thrill.  Within seconds, there was an outbreak of jay-walking, people eating a piece of toast on the go and even people failing to apologise profusely when they knocked into someone. In British civil disobedience terms, this was a vicious remake of The Hunger Games.

    Queuing For The Queue

    The civilian rulebook went out of the window, but a few minutes later it came back through the window very firmly indeed, for we had reached the Wimbledon Queue dominion — a ginormous grass field basking in sun and dressed in the famous dark green and purple tones. Even at first light, the field was becoming so full that we had to queue to join the main queue. This was an unexpected but welcome development — like playing a few rounds in the Halle Open before stepping up to the first round of Wimbledon, it was a golden chance to sharpen our technique ahead of the big one.

    After successfully practicing the tried and tested standing-tall-with-intermittent-stuttering-forwards approach, we were finally escorted – single file – into the main queue by the stewards. And what stewards they were. Sporting smart suits, Wimbledon club ties and sprightly chatter, it was like we were being led to a table in the Ritz Hotel. And then halt! We had reached the end of the line and were given a card stating our number in the queue. A glance at our ticket showed we were number 6228 in line — a much worse seeding than we were hoping for. Rafa Nadal, we feel your pain.

    The Ultimate Stewards

    Within a few hours, upwards of 10,000 people had been meticulously formed in lines that snaked majestically back and forth across the field. We made the Great Wall of China look like a garden fence. It was notable that nearly every fan we spoke to in the queue commended the organization of the queue, even before mentioning anything remotely regarding tennis. Forget swashbuckling rallies from the world’s elite, give the people what they really want — rigorously efficient and geometrically sound queues.

    Off The Net grabbed quick chat with one of the stewards who was giving internal orders via a walkie-talkie the size of a small European country. Suitably, he heroically leapt away to tend to the queue formation once more. Like all good Superheroes, he vanished within an instant.

    Such is its scale and reverence, The Wimbledon queue really does feel like an event in itself. It can’t be long now until a brand new queue starts up — one that leads to enormous stands that allow you to watch over the legendary Wimbledon line taking shape below. Imagine the roars of glee as the first fans scamper in to the queue and the ripples of applause as they move forward a few meters seemingly every hour on the hour. It’s essentially Test Cricket without the lunch and tea breaks.

    6.30am Hotdogs

    When they weren’t inadvertently breaking world records for the longest ever conga, the regimented crowds took the chance to kick back, relax and eat. It’s true that Wimbledon is the only slam played on grass, but lets not forget it is also the only slam where fans will happily chomp down on a hot dog and an ice lolly by 6.30am. At Wimbledon there are a whole host of nationalities in attendance and we met someone from seemingly every country on the planet. The United Nations of Queuing included Bhavik from India and Sally from Australia who had made darn well sure to fit Wimbledon into their trips to England.

    25 Page Guide To Queuing

    Bhavik made the strong point that the queue is distinctly lacking in entertainment. That said, there is an infectious zen-like tranquility throughout the field — a set from Katy Perry with accompanying t-shirt cannons and flash mobs wouldn’t quite fit in. Picnics not pyrotechnics were the order of the day.  Besides, we had all the exhilarating entertainment we needed – a glossy 25-page ‘Guide To Queuing’, which included more rules and regulations than the world’s individual constitutions put together. In the absence of a newspaper or a book, we read the whole thing…twice. It’s a challenging read to be honest — the narrative arc is a touch dry and the characters are fleeting, but there’s some high-octane plot twists on page 13 regarding the dangers of erecting a gazebo. Three stars.

    Camping Champions

    Whilst getting up at the crack of dawn is commendable, we can’t quite consider ourselves as the queuing elite. That honour has to go to the overnight campers — a small group of hardcore tennis fans who walk around with a well justified ethereal aura, for they are queuing royalty. We requested an audience with a few veterans of the process. These girls pitched their tents for the fourth year in a row.

    We heard that those wishing to get tickets for the semi-finals had to camp for several days. Madness. It can’t be long until these intensely committed Wimbledon fans evolve tent pegs from their fingers and have to unzip their mouths to speak. We’re not sure what it takes to make the final, but it seems entirely conceivable that you may need to start queuing now for a chance of seeing Nadal Junior play Federer Junior in the 2035 Wimbledon final.

    Hitting The Wimbledon Wall

    We must admit, as the sun reached the zenith of the sky and the queue’s movement ground down to the speed of Tim Henman’s second serve, we hit the metaphorical ‘wall’. After a good three hours in line we were lost in a fog of confusion and even began to contemplate whether Wimbledon actually existed at all. We had seen it on television, yes, but did it exist in reality – or was it a hoax conjured up as a marketing tool by a malicious strawberry and cream industry? Only time would tell.

    The Promiseland

    After six hours of waiting in line – the grassy queue conveyor belt finally charged its engines. When we were putting more than five strides together we knew something very special was happening.  The bottleneck into the grounds was dissipating dramatically and we were finally heading to Wimbledon for real. Tired, emotional, thirsty, sun-battered, exhausted and ecstatic to be greeted by officials at the gates waving us in – we were essentially James Franco in the final scene of 127 hours. 

    We had done it. We had survived the Wimbledon queue and quickly rang friends and family to call off the police search and rescue teams.

    Walking through the actual grounds and through the labyrinth of courts was a thing of real beauty and wonder. So much of the club feels so ancient and historic that it feels almost bizarre to be playing sport within it. Seeing the world’s best smash a back-hand here was the equivalent of Lebron James hitting a huge slam dunk in the Sistine Chapel or Lewis Hamilton negotiating the corridors of the Taj Mahal in his F1 Mercedes.

    A truly spectacular 5-set victory for Britain’s Liam Broady on Court 18 and a few sets of Stan Wawrinka pummeling his way to the second round (all for the price of a few bowls of strawberries) provided incontrovertible evidence for us – both that Wimbledon exists and that waiting in line here is arguably the most rewarding queue a human can ever endure.

    Each and every ‘Queue for The Championships 2015’ survivor – and the mighty stewards – deserves this very handsome round of applause:

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