Alix’s World: Wimbledon’s Cup Spilleth Over

Written by: Staff on 21st June 2010

Alix's World: Wimbledon’s Cup Spilleth Over |

Obviously, the awfully nice people at the All England Club would like to believe that their tournament will be the pivot around which the rest of the universe turns over the coming couple of weeks, but they may be sorely disappointed.

As mentioned in the last post, the World Cup is warming up nicely, even if the England team are playing like planks. The whole of Britain may be hoping that Andy Murray breaks the curse of Fred Perry and finally brings the Wimbledon trophy home for the first time in 74 years, but 50 million of those Brits are also English – and they have the spent the last 10 days chewing their nails down to the knuckles as their football team has failed miserably in South Africa.

The English papers, both tabloid and broadsheet, slaughtered the England players and the manager, Fabio Capello, in Saturday’s editions – England had drawn 0-0 with Algeria the night before and were truly, truly awful – so the nerves were still raw in the Wimbledon press room. Forget tennis talk; football was the topic of the day.

Under deep and close interrogation, Venus Williams revealed that she, like many women in Britain at the moment, is a World Cup widow. Sharing digs with little sis, Serena, she has to watch what Serena wants to watch on TV. And Serena likes to watch the football.

“Well, Serena watches it, so I have to watch it, too,” Venus admitted. “But I don’t understand any of the rules in soccer. So when something happens, I’m confused.”

Venus, then, sounds like Mr Capello and most of the England team – she hasn’t got a clue. She, though, has an excuse, seeing as she is an American tennis player; Capello, earning £6million a year, has none. So, on Saturday, suddenly Venus had a receptive audience.

“Obviously, I like when they go for the goal,” she went on. “Like I said, I don’t know what’s happening. I probably know a little bit more about American football. So, obviously, when they get close to the goal, I think that’s really the most exciting part for anyone.”

By George, she’s got it, as Rex Harrison once warbled. That arrangement of white posts and crossbars is the focus of any footy match. Get the ball past that bit and you are on to something.

Not that 10sballs.com wants to get above itself, but may we respectfully request that someone from the All England Club puts Venus – she of the vaguest of ideas of the rules and aims of the beautiful game – in touch with the over-paid Fabio?

As Ms W has pointed out: get the ball in the net and all will be well. People will love you. She could also mention that Fabio ought to drop Emile Heskey, play Steven Gerrard off Wayne Rooney and bring in Joe Cole, but that may be outwith Venus’s understanding. But just get the ball in the back of the net. You know it makes sense, Fabio. Venus has spoken.

***

Last year, Andy Roddick won British hearts by the bucket load with his dignified, funny and gracious acceptance of defeat at the hands of Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final. But one year on and Roddick was playing with fire when he admitted that he loved every moment of England’s humiliation at the hands of Algeria.

It is not that A-Rod is anti-English (even if he did enjoy the USA’s 1-1 draw with Capello’s muppets in the opening game), it was just that the streets were empty on Friday night allowing him to drive into town for a spot of dinner. “You’d be amazed how quickly you can get down there when an England game is on,” he said.

This really was a dangerous game to play with a room full of predominantly English hacks who were still smarting from the night before. OK, smarty-pants, so how much do you actually understand about the rules of football? Venus has just said that she struggles. Go on, mate, tell us.

“I understand the rules of football so well that apparently when two Slovenian guys mug an American guy, the American guy gets called for a foul,” Roddick replied, without missing a beat. “That’s how well I understand the rules.”

And in those couple of seconds that it took to explain his views, Roddick added the hearts of the press corps to his collection. He felt the room’s pain and they, in turn, felt his. A-Rod had bonded.

In their second game of the tournament, the USA had come back from a 2-0 deficit against Slovenia and thought that they had scored the winner in the 85^th minute when Edu got the ball in the net from a Donovan free kick. But the referee saw it differently and, blowing his whistle for a still-to-be-explained foul, he left the USA with only one point from the game. The fact that two American players were manhandled – nay, pinned to the ground – in the penalty box as the kick was taken seemed to escape him. A-Rod was still fuming about it 24 hours later.

In that moment, Roddick became one of us: one of those sad, depressed, hopeless people who follow their national team in the World Cup. It is a hard life as a football fan, but Roddick has proved that he is man enough to do it. Hell, winning Wimbledon should be a doddle after watching the World Cup.

Andy Murray, the No.4 seed and Scotland’s finest, is very careful not to get too involved in football talk when the World Cup is on.

Four years ago, he happened to mention – in jest – that he, as a Scot, would be supporting whoever England were playing in their opening match of the 2006 tournament. He was joking with his frightfully English pal, Tim Henman, at the time as Henman had just been teasing the Muzz mercilessly about Scotland’s record in the competition (Andy was only 11 when Scotland last qualified in 1998). The resulting media storm branded Murray as a dour, charmless, chippy Scot who hates the English. (Nothing could be further from the truth. Well, he is very Scottish, but he is anything but anti-English and he is a perfectly charming young man.)

Since then, Murray has tried to pay a little more attention to his public statements and his overall image. And that has left him in something of a quandary.

A clean living sort of lad – he spends his free time on the road doing core exercises in his hotel room. Get you, Tiger… – he does not go in for the trappings of fame and fortune. He does have a big house in the stockbroker belt of south west London, but he is not big on trinkets, gadgets and bling. But when he passed his driving test last year, he treated himself to a red Ferrari. Mind you, it was second hand so he wasn’t exactly throwing his money around, but, even so, it was a big, powerful, extremely fast and extremely expensive Ferrari. And that was the root cause of the trouble.

“I love driving it,” he said. “Driving the car is unbelievable, it’s great. It’s an unbelievable car and I really enjoy it.”

So far, so good. So what’s the problem?

“I just don’t really like getting out of it,” he said, sheepishly.

It is not that Murray cannot bear to leave his beloved sports car in the garage at night, it is rather that he worries what people will think of him when he parks up and emerges from its leather upholstered luxury.

“You could say that it’s a poser’s car and I don’t really like drawing attention to myself,” he added. “I love driving the car, but I don’t like what goes with it so I don’t really drive it as much as I would like to.”

So the Ferrari is going back to the showroom, Murray is keeping his trap shut on England’s performances in South Africa (although he was awfully nice about Wayne Rooney the other day) and, when last seen, the Muzz was driving himself to practise in a VW Polo. Oh, the glamour of life at the top.

Topics: 50 Million, Alix, American Football, American Tennis Player, Andy Murray, Brits, Capello, Digs, England Club, England Players, England Team, Football Team, Fred Perry, Interrogation, Knuckles, Pivot, Planks, Ramsay, Receptive Audience, Venus Williams, Wimbledon