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.

The Wimbledon Tennis Final.

Roger Federer - tennis player supreme.

The whole of Britain stopped on Sunday to watch the Wimbledon tennis final; I had to nip to the shop to pick something up half way through and there was nobody about; they were all glued to the TV sets.

The reason?

There was a British man in the final for the first time since about 1936 or so. The fact that this British man was a Scot was no matter – it didn't matter a jot, to use the vernacular.

Andy Murray his name is and unfortunately he played, who is arguably, the best player tennis has ever seen; a man from Switzerland call Roger Federer.

The man from Switzerland didn't start too well so the hope of the locals went up; he played a few unforced errors, sending the ball skywards on a few occasions and Murray won the first set but gradually Federer's skill and flair paid off.

There was a slight break for rain and they put the roof over the playing area, filled it with air conditioning and suddenly it was an indoor match.

Murray was winning outdoors but Federer is an indoor specialist – no excuses he was brilliant.

The problem here is that so much pressure is put on to British players at Wimbledon; it is the make up of Britain. There are kind of local capitals but they're more like regional centres. The counties have county towns – York in Yorkshire, Lancaster in Lancashire etc but those places are not the biggest towns or cities in those counties.

Britain is more parochial than America – if Switzerland held the biggest of the grand slam tennis tournaments how would Federer manage?

We nearly didn't watch it as an announcer came on to the BBC and announced, as his job description is described, that the men's final would be at 3:30 pm; I thought this might have been for the west coast American audience but no – it was a mistake.

Then on the day the two-o-clock news on the BBC said - Andy Murray is now on the Centre Court; so the sandwich we were about to eat was scoffed in front of the set.

In American terms the national figures for watching the event was okay at seventeen million which is nearly one third of the total population here but it's like one hundred million compared to America so you can imagine the impact it had.

There were certain omens working – when it was the Queen's Silver Jubilee Virginia Wade, an English girl, won the women's singles at Wimbledon and it seemed that the luck was with Murray in the year of the jubilee this year; but no – Federer won three sets to one.

I am getting my play ready for this Saturday so I will have to cut this short; if you're in London come and see it; the details are below.