The two weeks of the year when tennis is everyone’s favourite sport…
Today sees the start of the All-England Lawn Tennis Championships or, as it’s better known, Wimbledon. It might not hog the headlines as much this year due to a certain football tournament happening in Brazil but it would be remiss of us not to acknowledge that this is the only fortnight of the year where you might overhear tennis being spoken about on the bus, in the pub or over the garden fence.
Here’s some of the things you’ll hear Irish people say throughout the tournament.
‘Andy Murray is Scottish when he loses’
This old chestnut rears its head every single year. The sentiment behind it is that Andy Murray, from Dunblane in Scotland, is viewed by the British media as British until he gets knocked out. If and when he gets knocked out, he is reported as Scottish.
Without fail, every year, there will be posts on Facebook, tweets on Twitter and slurred words from the experts in the pub along the lines of “Oh yeah, I see Andy Murray is Scottish now that he is out” from people who think they have just cracked the enigma code and are leading lights in originality.
Anyway, depending on how the Scottish independence vote goes, this might be the last year of it…
‘Why do they keep hitting it into the net?’
Believe it or not, some people are mystified that professional tennis players, who have played all their lives, still find it difficult to hit the ball over the net. They think that with all that money and practise, they should at least be able to hit it over the net. Nothing to do with the 120MPH serve they’ve just been on the receiving end of.
‘Tennis is for toffs’
Despite being a game that’s played all over the world, the suspicion here in Ireland is that tennis is the exclusive domain of the wealthy and for public-school types only. Large men in pubs up and down the country sneer at the men and women in white as they bound around the court trying to play tennis.
‘Jaysus, they have the grass looking lovely’
To a lot of folks, the lush green swathes of grass at Wimbledon are easily the most impressive thing about the goings on at SW19. Cue talk of sunshine, moisture and fertiliser. They may be posh, but they do good grass.
‘I wasn’t bad at the old tennis back in the day’
Everyone seems to think they are good at tennis. However, the lack of any real Irish success in the sport in living memory (sorry Conor Niland) suggests that any Irish person who tells you this is a spoofer. Rattling a few balls off the gable end of your granny’s house with a wooden racket for an hour in 1987 does not mean you were any good.
‘F*ckin’ Cliff Richard’
This one is universal and not just an Irish thing.
‘The noise of them’
Certain female players, and quite a few men these days, make sounds all the way through their matches that you wouldn’t hear down the local cattle market. It is deeply troubling and distracting and you end up hoping the loudest offender loses, which is no way to watch sport.
‘Fancy a game?’
The most dangerous three words you can hear for the next fortnight. At the first sight of Sue Barker folks are grabbing equipment they haven’t touched in 50 weeks (no, not that you dirt bags) and heading out to the nearest public court. Problem is, 1,000 other people in the area thought the same. You can either queue sheepishly or, if you’re really unlucky, get on while everyone watches you suck.
Oh yeah, and you’ll wake up the next day in the sort of pain normally associated with a fall off a 20-foot ladder. Just say no everyone, we beg you.
‘God, I wish Anna Kournikova was still playing’
There are a decent amount of very attractive female tennis players playing the game these days – Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic – are JOE’s personal favourites – but arguably none of them have reached the levels of adulation commanded by the ravishing Russian in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Just in case you’ve forgotten exactly why, observe exhibit A below…
That Robinsons stuff looks tasty enough, but it’s no Mi Wadi
It really isn’t.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
