Published: 11 July, 2013
by RICHARD OSLEY

WELL done Andy. That’s all we need to say now, well done Andy Murray and thank you. Thank you for a picturebook Sunday afternoon when anything in the world seemed possible, a flicker of Olympic glory returned for a few skin-peeling hours of joy.

We always knew that Centre Court would be bathed in sunshine on the day Britain ended its Wimbledon curse in the men’s tournament and finally we could raise a barley water toast to a champion.

We could quibble afterwards why a man who had just become a bit of a people’s hero, having achieved what once seemed impossible, needed to be supremely punished with a fast-track visit to the Downing Street garden and forced to make muggy small talk with our wobble-chinned politicians.

The poor lad must have thought ‘what on earth did I do to deserve this?’ as they clucked around him like bloated peacocks on Monday.

We could quibble, too, about why the iconic moment of victory had to be set to the sofa chat soundtrack of Andrew Castle, who should probably be advised never to search his own name on Twitter while at work.

(I did that on Twitter once and found myself staring at a rock n roll hairdresser called Richard Osley running a salon in California called The Grateful Head. At once, I knew I wasn’t alone in this world. But judging by the mixed response to his commentary, Castle might not find it such a heart-warming experience).

On finals day, the crowd actually yelped prematurely in excitement on match point – during the rally – when they thought Novak Djokovic had missed on the shot before he actually did. Alas, there was not time for Castle to pipe: “There’s some people yelping, they think it’s all over… IT IS NOW”.

But there’s his voice, Andrew Castle, from the sorry adverts and from those barren years of short shorts British tennis, overlaid like Wolstenholme on a moment of our shared sporting history, forever.

There’s a quibble too in the stupid questions Murray was subjected to after victory had finally been secured. I wanted him to walk into the press room in sunglasses and a leather jacket, turning to the assembled journalists with only two words: “HAPPY NOW?” before walking out with the gold trophy and disappearing on a Harley-D and a ‘smell ya later’.

What actually happened is a lot of reporters asked him what his next challenge would be, as if even winning Wimbledon would not break their treadmill of unimaginative questions.

Just let him enjoy this one, yeah? Then came the even more vacuous line of questioning from TV’s marvellous Holly Willoughby: “Will you be proposing to Kim now?”

Righty-hoots.  The chances of the couple marrying after all did hinge, suspensefully, on the result of Sunday’s final.  Defeat would have inevitably seen Djokovic sitting in the back pew on Andy and Kim’s big day shouting out “uh-ah, no, no, no, not until he’s beaten me at Wimbledon” just at the moment the vicar called for any known lawful impediments.

Thankfully, Murray deals with dull questions with the exasperated style of a kid – or an adult for that matter – being disturbed from his PlayStation.
“I only just met you 10 minutes ago so I wouldn’t be telling you first,” he trolled. Good for him.

All they really needed to do this week was say ‘well done Andy’.