All the sevens work at Wimbledon!!

Seven seven (7/7) in Britain is like nine eleven (9/11) in America; 7/7 was the day of the London Bombings in 2005; although if 9/11 had happened in Britain, or anywhere else bar America, it would have been 11/9, but 7/7 this year was the day of the men's singles final at Wimbledon and it had been 77 years since a British man had won - in fact no British man in shorts had ever won.

The last Brit to win the men's singles title was Fred Perry and he won it three times in the days when the male competitors wore long trousers. In fact King George VI, when he was the Duke of York, played tennis at Wimbledon wearing long trousers; I remember seeing him – but that was on archive footage; I'm not that old! 

 

He was the king that the movie The King's Speech was based on.

So on Sunday of this week, 7/7, a young man from Dunblane in Scotland, entered the centre court; he represented himself, of course, but Britain decided he was representing them although he could easily have been representing Scotland or maybe to put Dunblane on the map as the place where he came from - as opposed to the place of the biggest school massacre in Scottish history.

On March 13^th 1996 a gunman entered Dunblane Primary School and killed 16 children and one adult; the kids were aged between 5 and 6. 

The one adult killed was a school mistress who was killed trying to protect the children in her care.

After firing at another bunch of children, fatally wounding one and injuring 3 adults and 10 other children, the gunman put the gun inside his miserable mouth committing suicide.

This incident, and three other massacres, effectively made the private ownership of hand guns in the United Kingdom illegal. No NRA (National Rifle Association) in Britain so no serious complaints.

The young man in question, the man from Dunblane, who was coming up to 9 at the time of the killings, happened to be in the wrong (or right) classroom at the time but had to hide from the killer all the same and survived to take up a career in tennis where on Sunday, 7/7, he beat the world number one, Novak Djokovic, in straight sets 6-4, 7-5, 6-4.

Who knows what the other kids from that fateful day in 1996 would have achieved in their lifetimes before their senseless killings? 

 

Andy Murray doesn't say much about the massacre and the fact that the killer was known to his family, that his mother gave him lifts in her car and that Andy was a member of the killer's youth club - but Sunday was a day when all the sevens added up. 

 

Instead of throwing a seven Andy won and 17 million viewers watched BBC1 on Sunday; not great figures compared to America but great for here.

So here's to you, Andy Murray, you stopped Britain for a few hours on Sunday and today the Prime Minister (call me Dave) said you should be knighted; I hope not. Not yet anyway; it means nothing.