ANYONE FOR TENNIS?

AFTER YEARS OF WORSHIPPING someone who spoke with a decent public school accent, had a sensible haircut and never seemed to get ruffled – indeed, three of the qualities one expects from an English gentleman – the Wimbledon public are now making an attempt to try to maintain a liking for a dour, ill-tempered and erratic Scot, all under the guise of English people doing their best to pretend that they are “British”, an epithet usually left for the hordes of unkempt Celts that occupy the West of the islands, and descendents of Europeans and other sundry immigrants to our shores.

TIM HENMAN was someone the English tennis-loving community could rely on. He would on occasion get to a semi-final of Wimbledon and threaten to do better, but one instinctively knew that he would get no further, as winning international sports events just was not English. This solid English dependability was what made him so loved.

NOW ABSENT HEROES HAVE BECOME FORGOTTEN through the fiery presence of Andy Murray, a Scot who knows he is a Scot, and behaves like a Scot. Henman, as all English gentlemen should do on retirement, has disappeared into utter oblivion. Murray however, is still clinging to the possibility that he will go “all the way”, even though so many of us know that – just as has happened so many times in the past – his success will be short-lived. Indeed, I imagine that he will be eliminated, and perhaps humiliated, before long -- if he doesn’t sensibly withdraw from the competition when things get tough, as he has done before. One wonders whether Gordon Brown will take the hint.