Richard Osley

Published: 27 June, 2013

CENTRE Court is an intoxicating place.

A friend treated me and took me there on Monday and, before you groan, it wasn’t us who left the seats empty when Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova and Andy Murray were playing. Somehow – not sure how, but somehow – everybody should get to go there at least once.

In fact in your gurgling baby years, you should be weighed, given a BCG and then a ticket to bank which in later life grants you entry into Wimbledon for a day. The place is almost mystical, it has the power to turn the heads of sceptics. A visit-for-all might just inspire a few people to ensure the United Kingdom does not just have one good player every now and then.

But back to those empty seats. It is plainly going to irritate anybody who spends the night in a tent and still fails to see a big match to look at seats so vacant Lord Coe’s Olympic team might have overseen the sales.

Of course, a day pass is not like a football match and all over in 90 minutes. At Wimbledon you’d have to sit there for up to seven hours to see it all. Catheters will need to be fitted if we want every seat sat in at all times.

Still, looking around, it does seem like there are a lot of sponsored seats for corporate days out and networkers getting waylaid at the Pimm’s bar while Roger is out there on the court.

There’s also this growing trend for the cameras spotting celebrities, politicians and royals on Centre Court. On Monday the cast seemed endless: Pippa Middleton, Condoleezza Rice, Felicity Kendal, Sir Trevor McDonald, Denise Lewis, David Mitchell and Victoria Coren and on and it went…

If they were all here, it would be interesting to know who was back holding the fort on ‘coming out of a coffee shop in Notting Hill’ duty so the fine photographers of Her Majesty’s press had something to do.

But it didn’t stop there. Behind us seemed to be a comedians’ quarter in which, inexplicably, Sir David Attenborough had been seated.

I heard he loves the animal jokes best, especially the ol’ what’s black and white and red all over gag… a sunburnt zebra/penguin/badger etc, etc.

In this lark-makers’ seating area, you could see TV’s Lee Mack, Jonathan Creek and Jason Manford looking on. Hear that: Jason Manford gets to go to the tennis and you don’t. If only you – you in the queue – had been as funny as Jason Manford, you wouldn’t be in the queue.

All of those guys may have won tickets in the ballot, of course. How lucky though that they got tickets so near to each other, all on the same day, and on Centre Court for Andy Murray.

Now, this all does sounds very bitter, very student newspaper column stick-it-to-the-man (even if the man happens to just be Lee Mack) bitter.

And, of course, people who are well known have as much right to go to the tennis as everyone else. But rather than worry about whether the comedians get tickets, maybe there could be more school trips. I can tell you of a few secondaries that would tear your arm off for the chance.

At the moment, as madly in love with the place as I am, there is a danger of Centre Court looking like a place reserved only for people who either have lots of money or people we unfairly assume have lots of money because they are on the telly.

Surely it  doesn’t have to be like that.