Wimbledon is the highlight of the year for tennis fans. But for local residents it’s a fortnight of traffic chaos and misery. As a born-and-bred Wimbledonian, I think I have earned the right to ask this: hasn’t the tennis all got a bit much?
If you have lived in Wimbledon for any stretch of time, you will quickly learn that there is one thing, and one thing only, non-SW19ers will associate you with: the tennis. There’s a good reason why. After Christmas and Easter, the Wimbledon championships are treated much like the town ’s third annual holy feast. At least two weeks in advance, the first of the ubiquitous tennis ball decorations begin to appear in shopfronts across the borough. Some dangle them like gaudy yellow baubles in their windows; others try their hand at fashioning ‘creative’ sculptures out of them. It doesn’t matter if what they’re selling bears no relation to tennis in the slightest: one phone shop near Wimbledon station has this year suspended a frankly hideous hemispherical 3D smiley emoji made out of tennis balls above its entrance, replete with enormous red sunglasses and cartoon ice creams and love hearts. So far, so gauche.
Many Wimbledonians shut up shop altogether and get out of SW19 for the whole fortnight
Some will no doubt accuse me of being a bit of a tennis bah humbug. And, yes, if enduring two weeks of ‘GAME, SET, MATCH!’ screaming out from every reflective surface in the town centre was all it was, then perhaps I’d say fair enough. But the ball ache – pardon the pun – of the championships hardly stops there.
For the first half of every July, more than half a million visitors descend on Wimbledon for the tennis. Last year, 788,000 of those traipsed through the doors of Wimbledon station alone – an increase of over 25 per cent compared to your average fortnight at any other point in the year. This flood of people turns the district line – the tube line that terminates at the station – into a hot, sticky hellscape on wheels and makes school and work commutes for Wimbledonians a nightmare.
And that’s before we get onto the traffic. Alongside the many who chose to drive, the championship lays on a fleet of double-decker buses that chug up and down Wimbledon hill throughout the day, ferrying the tens of thousands of spectators swarming on Wimbledon station up to the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC). Wimbledon town centre’s layout has barely changed since it sprung up in the 19th century – and the streets of Wimbledon Village are older still by several centuries. The truth is that these old streets can’t cope with the huge volume of traffic. Tailbacks through the centre of town are a daily occurrence during the tournament.
Closer to the AELTC itself, many of the streets are blocked off and traffic placed on diversion for the tournament’s duration. A good chunk of Wimbledon park is turned into a car park for visitors, while another portion plays host to ‘the Queue’ – the infamous, hours’ if not days’ long line of punters hoping for a ticket into the club’s grounds. By the time the circus rolls out of town, the park is reduced to a dust bowl.
The AELTC plans to eat up more of the park in the coming years with its plans to build 39 new tennis courts and an 8,000-seat stadium on the site of the former Wimbledon park golf club. The club wants to host qualifying matches for the Championship on the new courts, but, understandably, many locals are concerned about the environmental impact the construction would have. A judicial review on the development is due to be held next month.
Of course, for Wimbledon’s pubs and restaurants, all the extra footfall from the tournament is great for business. But good luck finding a seat if you fancy popping out for a spontaneous Thursday night pint or Friday date night: everything gets booked out weeks in advance. Two girls behind the bar in one pub I nipped into called the fortnight ‘chaos’, directing an eye roll at the cheeky chappies loudly sinking pints in front of the big screen set up in the pub forecourt.
A decade ago, there was at least some excitement to be gleaned from the masses of freebies and samples handed out outside Wimbledon station throughout the fortnight. One year in particular, I acquired an impressively eclectic collection on my way to and from school: suncream, Ribena, dishwasher tabs, Haagen Dazs ice cream. These days, such small delights – or, as I saw them, tokens of compensation for the inconvenience of the fortnight – seem to have sadly vanished.
Many Wimbledonians choose to shut up shop altogether and get out of SW19 for the whole fortnight. We’re now half way through this year’s tournament, and so the countdown is on until normality is restored. Until then, I’ll be staying away – and will stick to watching the tennis on the telly.
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