Robbie James turns his attention to British hero Andy Murray as he embarks on what will be his last Wimbledon
I’m going to miss Andy Murray the event organiser more than Andy Murray the tennis player, and we can learn so much from the relationship we’ve formed with him over the years.
Summers of sport have an undeniable ability to unify often divided British population, even if just for 90 minutes at a time. Non sports fans become sports fans. Parks become fan zones. Andrew Castle the political commentator becomes Andrew Castle the tennis commentator. Tournament schedules create the occasion, but the personnel involved turn those occasions into real life history. Yes I’m cringing too, but am I wrong?
As we’re learning with the England men’s football team, we channel our emotion and desire in contrasting ways, depending on the sport
When a 25-year-old Andy Murray lost the first Wimbledon final of his career in 2012 to Roger Federer, and proceeded to tear up during his post-match interview with Sue Barker, we weren’t calling for his coach, Ivan Lendl to get sacked. We weren’t telling Twitter how underwhelmed and fed up we were. We just wanted to give the bloke a hug.
We’ve been able to form a deeper bond with Andy than we’ve managed with any team, and that’s largely thanks to the frequency of Wimbledon (compared to the Olympics), and our old friend terrestrial television.
Does he feel like extended family? I think to a lot of people he probably does. His emotion is loud, and it’s there on court for us all to see, so naturally he feels accessible. No doubt it helps that we’ve seen mother Judy, wife Kim, and brother Jamie on our screens almost as much as we’ve seen Andy during his time on Centre Court. I’m going to really miss seeing Judy Murray looking absolutely furious with her wee son.
We feel sincere empathy for his placement within the Dunblane massacre, and then inevitable lifelong trauma he must so often need to fight. We will for him to succeed. Even in these (seemingly) last few months of his career, we’re not willing for him to necessarily even win, we just want one more moment where we can chant “let’s go Andy, let’s go”. We want to hear him scream “nooooo Andyyyyy for f**k sake” and look up to his coaching box like they’ve somehow hacked his body’s computer and decided to smash a forehand into the net just for a laugh. We just want one more theatre performance.
He’s won over the personality police. How it took so many people so long to understand that he’s just a shy man is beyond me, but I’m very pleased that he’s now got the backing of so many of his critics. I think we’ve been very lucky to have had access to such an authentic personality. Alongside his beautifully dry sense of humour, the Scotsman’s managed to use his platform for good, without becoming a propaganda machine. We’ll hear or see him subtly stand up for what he believes in, like the times he’s called out casual sexism in various news conferences. No malice, and no hint of making it about him, something many celebrities are unable to achieve.
Murray’s first Wimbledon title in 2013 will live with me for a long time. The game of cricket I was playing on that Sunday afternoon became completely irrelevant as me and my best mate Will sat around the FM radio. (Tennis wins the award for ‘Best Ambient Sound’ at Robbie’s Silly Sports Awards by the way. Chit-chat. Silence. Applause. Repeat for up to six hours. Glorious).
The winning moment was a split-second moment, just like a goal, a wicket, a nine darter; but this wasn’t a moment of euphoria that made you want to take your top off and throw your warm beer in the air. It was just a moment that made you want to smile. You didn’t want to jump around because you wanted to catch Andy’s reaction, Judy’s reaction, Centre Court’s reaction. You wanted to hear the upcoming interview. You just wanted to smile and absorb the screen, or in my case, the sounds of the radio.
I hope we can all learn to champion more of our wonderful athletes and teams in the way we’ve got behind Andy for the last 15 years. We owe that man so much for the joyous moments he’s given us. Not bad for a man who doesn’t smile.