Class system alive and kicking at Wimbledon

Jul 9 2008 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

EVERY July I’m reminded that the British class system is alive and kicking – and that it is people like us, with no silver spoon in our mouths, who get that kicking.

The occasion? Wimbledon. That strange playground of the upper class where there’s a hatred for players who don’t conform to Home Counties’ morals and attitudes. Hence the roasting that Andy Murray got from certain media last week.

Take the Daily Telegraph. Murray, the paper said, just “spurns our affection” and “will never make us swoon”, because “we liked Tim Henman's Home Counties’ stiff upper lip far more than the aggression of this young man”.

On top of this, Murray didn't deserve our support because “dour Scots are already over-represented in public life”. The way they talk, you would think he was Rab C Nesbitt with a tennis racquet.

What it comes down to is pure prejudice. It wasn’t enough for Murray to be a Brit. Quite simply, he didn’t tick the boxes in terms of class and upbringing. He was ‘not of the English breed’.

It all goes back a long way. Our last great male tennis star, Fred Perry - the last Brit to win the Wimbledon men’s singles back in 1936 - was always made conscious of the deep disdain felt for his Stockport mill town origins. That bitching went on even after he had won for his country. In his autobiography he recalled being in a shower after a win, and overhearing some Lawn Tennis Association bigwig braying that someone of his class ‘would now be a hero’.

Times don’t change much, do they? Especially not at Wimbledon.

- Park Bencher