Sport takes a back seat at Wimbledon

Press, 3 July 1985, Page 39

Sport takes a back seat at Wimbledon

NZPA-AAP London Any thoughts of Britain as a land of dole and industrial decay are swept away at this time of year. The country’s three million unemployed and vast expanses of idle factories disappear from view in a storm of banknotes as soon as the two premier social events draw near. Wimbledon and Ascot may look like sport from a distance but many who spend vast sums getting a closer look could not tell a forehand from a backhand or a colt from a gelding. Being seen is the name of the game — as essential to the image of the Briton who’s “made it” as the Italian sports car or patriotic Rolls-Royce and equally as essential for those still battling to. It is difficult to imagine how anyone can hope to be “seen” in the overcrowded confines of the Royal Box at Ascot. During the four-day meeting 35,000 of the sociallyaware fork out about £660,000 ($1,848,000 for the privilege of rubbing shoulders with a few members of the Royal Family and — constantly — each other. The cost of entry at about £2O ($56) is relatively modest but outrageous prices for drinks and snacks, not to mention the hire of the obligatory formal dress, means a day

at Ascot can cost a man a minimum of three or four times that amount without going near the tote. For female racegoers, the sky’s the limit for a dress and the mandatory hat. Christmas comes at this time of year for the high fashion industry as anything not new and or with less than a fat three-figure price tag would make the whole exercise pointless. The society gossip columnist, Nigel Dempster, suggested the whole thing was getting out of hand when he wrote that Ascot “has degenerated from an occasion to a circus.” Mr Dempster did some calculations suggesting the racecourse, owned by the Queen, will make about £2 million ($5.6 million) from this year’s “overcrowding and overpricing”. The “Daily Mail” headline called it “a Royal rip-off” but there is no sign the crowd will be any thinner next year. Meanwhile, the rumblings from the All England Lawn Tennis and Crocquet Club have been a little louder than usual about the rip-off that annually surrounds their little two-week tennis tournament. Four-digit inflation sets in as soon as the ballot for the centre court tickets takes place. Even while the grass is still being cut a pair of

seats for the finals seats which the club sold for £34 ($95) are being touted openly in London for £l2OO ($3360) plus 15 per cent value added tax. Respond to a classified advertisement in “The Times” and you could be offered a package deal involving chauffeur-driven limousine and lunch in a top-class restaurant. They are snapped up by companies with household names to impress clients or individuals who simply want to impress. According to some reports, prices have been inflated this year by the imminent arrival in London of 15,000 American lawyers for their annual bar convention which starts soon afterwards. Such is the demand that “very good forgeries” were reported to the police by a south London ticket agency. Wimbledon C.I.D. said they believed the racket had been stopped but not before the still-unknown forger netted thousands of pounds from gullible speculators. Another south London agency was the victim of an armed robbery, not of cash but a handful of Wimbledon tickets which had set them back several thousand on the black market. The 10,000 centre court seats are particularly prized not just for their snob value but because they offer the

only way of avoiding hours of queueing to get into the championships. Most of the 300,000 who will watch this year’s championship miss the main action. If they are lucky they get a seat on an outside court. If not, they will spend most of the day wishing they were taller and digging deeply for overpriced refreshments. For the privilege, they must join a queue which starts to form before the gates shut the previous day and snakes through Wimble’don Common hours before they open again. But there are more than enough with the patience or the wherewithal to keep Wimbledon booming each year. Last year, the All England club made another record profit of more than £3M (SB.4M), most of which goes into British tennis. How much the touts and profiteers made is anyone’s guess. The club’s chairman, a former tank commander, Buzzer Hadingham, aged 69, said: “There is nothing we can do to stop the black market.” “Of course, I am against the touts. I hate the thought of people having to pay a vast amount of money for tickets,” he said. “But Wimbledon tickets are very much in demand and the prices reflect that.”