Wimbledon

[woolybanana]

Murray wins Wimbledon, mild clapping in crowd!!!

[Rabbie]

[quote user="woolybanana"]Murray wins Wimbledon, mild clapping in crowd!!![/quote]Typical British restraint[6] 

[woolybanana]

Not like those foreigners.

[Russethouse]

I thought of the lady mentioned here, who won tickets for centre court seats....I hope she loved every second...I did!

[Gardian]

As far as I know, she went.  There's no way that she would have sold the tickets (although I would, for the £84k that was quoted as being the price for good seats on ebay).

Report later after we've spoken to her. 

[Russethouse]

For a tennis fan, to see Andy Murray win at Wimbledon was as near to priceless as it gets .......:-)

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

[quote user="Rabbie"][quote user="woolybanana"]Murray wins Wimbledon, mild clapping in crowd!!![/quote]Typical British restraint[6] [/quote]

Obviously the crowd are all English ;)

[YCCMB]

No...they let a few foreigners in as well. In fact, I saw almost as much of Bradley Cooper during the match as I did of Andy Murray.

[woolybanana]

Who is Bradley Cooper?

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0177896/

I had to look him up too. Heard the name, but no idea who he was. Turns out I'd seen a couple of his flicks.

[YCCMB]

[quote user="woolybanana"]Who is Bradley Cooper?[/quote]

Well, clearly I did know the answer, but in the context of what was going on on the tennis court, that very same question kept going through my mind. Along with the question "Did they sit Alex Salmond behind David Cameron on purpose?"

[woolybanana]

Is Salmon the mouthy fat git waving the funny blue flag? He should have been in the pub down the road!

[Clarkkent]

Congratulations to Andy Murray.

And who was the last British citizen to have been a Wimbledon men's champion?

[YCCMB]

There's been a bit of a lack of francophone spirit on here with regard to the weekend's events, hasn't there? Nobody seems to have mentioned Marion Bartoli.

Edit. I mean francophile. My head is full of porridge. Or actually, it's full of virus.

[Gardian]

Murray must be heartily sick of the countless interviews he's had to give this morning.

"And how do you feel this morning Andy?"

"Sick - sick of being asked the same bloody question". [:'(]

[woolybanana]

With the exception of Rod Laver and a small number of others, what a load of C list people were in the royal box

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2358121/Wimbledon-2013-Your-guide-royals-film-stars-champions-political-heavyweights-cheered-Andy.html

[PaulT]

[quote user="Clarkkent"]

Congratulations to Andy Murray.

And who was the last British citizen to have been a Wimbledon men's champion?

[/quote]

Dear Mr Salmond

When was the last time a SCOT, before Murray, won the Wimbledon mens final

Thanking you in anticipation

Paul

[Rabbie]

[quote user="PaulT"][quote user="Clarkkent"]

Congratulations to Andy Murray.

And who was the last British citizen to have been a Wimbledon men's champion?

[/quote]

Dear Mr Salmond

When was the last time a SCOT, before Murray, won the Wimbledon mens final

Thanking you in anticipation

Paul

[/quote]The BBC website states that a Mr Mahoney who won in 1896 was the only other Wimbledon winner born in Scotland.  

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Clarkkent"]

Congratulations to Andy Murray.

And who was the last British citizen to have been a Wimbledon men's champion?

[/quote] I believe that Fred Perry did not take out USA citizenship until after he won Wimbledon.

Your point is???

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="Rabbie"][quote user="Clarkkent"]

Congratulations to Andy Murray.

And who was the last British citizen to have been a Wimbledon men's champion?

[/quote] I believe that Fred Perry did not take out USA citizenship until after he won Wimbledon.

Your point is???

[/quote]

The question doesn't ask who was the last British citizen to win the title.

The last such person was Jaroslav Drobny, in 1954, who was also the oldest man to win the men's title. He had settled in England and had an English wife. However, he was not granted British citizenship until five years later. At the time of his victory he held an Egyptian passport.

He also played ice hockey and won an Olympic silver medal as a member of the Czech team at the London games in 1948.

[DraytonBoy]

If the Scots get independence will this mean they will no longer be part of GB? If so where does this leave Murray's win in the context of the 'last British winner'?

[YCCMB]

Isn't this all getting rather silly now? The press have been doing this sort of pointless micro-analysis for years, and it seems to have rubbed off. A Scottish bloke just won Wimbledon. It's been some time since anyone with a remote or tenuous claim to Britishness did that. If Djokovic had won, there would have been the option for an even more convoluted discussion, given the changing map of his particular part of Europe : only nobody wold have given a XXXX.

[Clarkkent]

Betty is right, it all is getting rather silly. But then, that's the world we live in.

It seems that success in sport is used - almost universally - as a yardstick against which a nation's self-worth is judged. Only a year ago, the UK was crowing about its medal totals in the Olympic Games. Some commentators have suggested that Australia is ridden with self doubt simply because its sporting achievements are rather less than it thinks they should be.

In the case of tennis, well, lawn tennis was a game invented in England (am I right in thinking Birmingham?) and yet England continually finds it difficult to produce any players capable of standing up to the best in the world, whereas "insignificant" countries like the Czech Republic or Croatia or Serbia seem to produce top players at the drop of a hat. My own opinion is that as long as tennis is perceived as a safe middle class activity, in the same social category as vicarage tea parties, it will be difficult to find large numbers of top players. It will only be when working class boys perceive tennis as an alternative to football as a route to wealth and fame that these will emerge.

It is instructive to compare the provision of public courts in England and France. My French commune has a population of about 250, but it has three tennis courts, and many of the neighbouring villages also have tennis courts. In my English midlands town, population 25,000, there are no public courts. The only ones available are attached to schools or private clubs.

Mr Murray now appears to have become an honorary Englishman and there are loud mutterings in high places about a knighthood.

But it's only a game.

[Russethouse]

[quote user="DraytonBoy"]If the Scots get independence will this mean they will no longer be part of GB? If so where does this leave Murray's win in the context of the 'last British winner'?[/quote]

I suspect more importantly for Judy, Jamie and Andy Murray where would it leave funding for Scottish tennis given that the Scottish sporting powers that be didn't see fit to include tennis in their Commonwealth games bid for 2014

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Clarkkent"]

Mr Murray now appears to have become an honorary Englishman and there are loud mutterings in high places about a knighthood.

But it's only a game.

[/quote]

This is one of the silliest of the silly things, as far as I'm concerned. Mind you, as a 50/50 blend of Scots and English, maybe that's just me. He's British, whether he, you, I or anyone else likes it or not. I don't remember any of this BS happening with Chris Hoy, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart,Chay Blyth, Willie Carson and the legions of other Scots who have excelled in their chosen sporting field.

Are we going to have the same fuss about Laura Robson, if she ever makes the grade? After all, she's Australian, born in Melbourne to Australian parents, yet no-one questions her perceived "British" credentials. She's only playing here because when she was growing up as a junior, her parents realised that the European circuit would present more of a challenge to her than playing in Australian/Asian tennis. And I got that from the horse's mouth.