On the subject of tickets. The private tennis clubs and multi-sport ones which include tennis, around the country get access collectively, to a considerable number. You can guess who gets them within them given the usual "pecking order" at such clubs, I know from personal experience.
Such a situation helps to maintain much of the "middle class look" of the event.
That's not my experience at the local tennis club I used to be a member of. Every member had the chance to be in the ballot and had an equal chance of winning (the first year we were in it, we got the men's final!).
Membership of the club was open to absolutely anyone who wanted to join and pay the fee (which, from memory, wasn't that high). This is a rural club with good facilities.
Yeah it is a great demonstration of how polarised britain continues to become. Right now its fancy people only in the sporting events but what you are looking at is the only people in ten years time who will be able to afford essential things such as tge NHS.
I don't know what Murray is doing he goes to a photo call at No.10 which is just for Cameron to bask in the halo effect.
Is it Andy the Torry now. He is doing a great job of being there puppet pawn PR gold mine.
He would have been invited whoever was in power, it's only fitting that he should have been given the honour of being invited to number 10 whichever party were in power, some things rise above party politics, and seeing him stood next to David Cameron hasn't done anything to make me give the Tories credit for his win!!
That's not my experience at the local tennis club I used to be a member of. Every member had the chance to be in the ballot and had an equal chance of winning (the first year we were in it, we got the men's final!).
Membership of the club was open to absolutely anyone who wanted to join and pay the fee (which, from memory, wasn't that high). This is a rural club with good facilities.
I guess some clubs work differently.
Oh so you have to be a member of a club just to get the chance to buy a ticket.
That explains a lot. Why don't they just put them on ticket master and give the whole public a chance?
And it's not all toffs on the inside. I know a couple of completely non-toffs who've been to Wimbledon on semi-finals day. You just have to be lucky in the ballot for tickets.
Yes, but usually you get allocated the non-toff seats right in the nose bleed back rows of the show courts.
Plus 500 tickets a day for each of centre and courts 1 and 2 are held back for those who queue overnight.
Given there is a 15,000 capacity on Centre, why only 500? Can't they do about 1,500 queueing tickets? 10% for people who are willing to put in that much effort isn't too much.
I watched from the hill it's quite a good atmosphere plus you aren't pinned to your seat barely able to breathe. You have to try Wimbledon once to understand the hill bit.
This isn't the show court experience I had (through ballot or resale tickets).
I used to hope Henman would lose when I saw his parents sat in the box as if they owned the place, with that look on their face as if they had just smelled something rotten.
:eek::D
The Henmans still seem to be there for every match on Centre Court these days!
I have had tickets on centre court and no1 court in the past, having applied at the appropriate time and been lucky.
Well I say lucky, on both occasions the players I wanted to watch, Tim and Andre were on the other courts playing so guess what, I ended watching on Henman HIll.....
This annoys me. I would love to be on the show courts and others are leaving their seats empty to watch on the hill. If people leave for substantial periods of time, their show court tickets should be taken from them.
I was lucky enough to have tickets for both myself and Mrs. FB yesterday and we are anything but toffs. I myself had an ordinary working class education at Charterhouse whilst Mrs. FB was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, both regular run of the mill schools with no airs, graces or pretences. Both of us worked tirelessly to get our firsts from Cambridge. It was tough trying to survive on the £40,000.00 a term allowance my parents provided (they were News Agents), I myself always found Micklemas term the toughest at Charterhouse, but that's by the by.
Thoroughly enjoyed the day and was bally well chuffed that Murray fellow gave that Balkan chappie a damn good thrashing.
I think the whole "celebrity" thing cheapens Wimbledon. The Royal Box used to consist mainly of past champions which added to the prestige, not James Corden and the Rooneys.
Unfortunately, "royalty" these days is the likes of Victoria Beckham and James Corden. :rolleyes:
I don't know what Murray is doing he goes to a photo call at No.10 which is just for Cameron to bask in the halo effect.
Is it Andy the Torry now. He is doing a great job of being there puppet pawn PR gold mine.
I guess Andy wanted to visit Downing Street, can't blame him, plus it would have been rude to turn the PM down. Wouldn't it be funny if Andy had said no, and suggested meeting Cameron without any cameras present at another time?
That's not my experience at the local tennis club I used to be a member of. Every member had the chance to be in the ballot and had an equal chance of winning (the first year we were in it, we got the men's final!).
Membership of the club was open to absolutely anyone who wanted to join and pay the fee (which, from memory, wasn't that high). This is a rural club with good facilities.
I guess some clubs work differently.
Of course all clubs aren't the same, mine's in a fairly affluent area and wasn't cheap to join.
As I said earlier, juniors regardless of ability, weren't allowed to use the two best grass courts, "everything came second to mixed doubles."
As a one time member of the council, it was possible to "black ball" any applicant, (the balls and box used were over a hundred years old!) if someone on it didn't want them to be admitted. It rarely happened, but when it did, the rest of the council accepted the wishes of the objector.
Of course all clubs aren't the same, mine's in a fairly affluent area and wasn't cheap to join.
As I said earlier, juniors regardless of ability, weren't allowed to use the two best grass courts, "everything came second to mixed doubles."
As a one time member of the council, it was possible to "black ball" any applicant, (the balls and box used were over a hundred years old!) if someone on it didn't want them to be admitted. It rarely happened, but when it did, the rest of the council accepted the wishes of the objector.
Gees tennis is a lot worse than I thought. You would think things like this would die out and human beings would move on but no.
How pathetic somebody wants to join a sports club but they are bared just because somebody who went to a comitie meeting occasionally puts a black ball in a bag.
I wish I could just say this is pathetic but it's actually sick and against everything sport should stand for.
Oh so you have to be a member of a club just to get the chance to buy a ticket.
That explains a lot. Why don't they just put them on ticket master and give the whole public a chance?
No, that's not the case.
A proportion of tickets are allocated to tennis clubs to distribute to their members. This is to make sure that people who actually play tennis, and are involved all year round, have a decent chance of going.
A proportion of tickets are allocated to an open ballot. Anyone can enter that.
Another portion of tickets are held back and released daily on ticketmaster.
More tickets are released each morning to those who have queued up.
There's also the debenture tickets, which are for the wealthy, and I'm sure a good few set aside for Wimbledon members, the corporate guests, and VIPs invited by the club/tournament itself.
I'm sure they could improve the system, in particular how they organise the general public ballot to make it less convoluted, but overall it's a decent system that lets a wide range of people access to the tournament. The problem is that there is considerably more demand for tickets than actual tickets.
They could up the prices accordingly and shove them all on ticketmaster. It would be easier, and they'd make more money. However, the rich would benefit, while tennis fans would suffer.
IMO, the biggest issue is that some idiots like to peddle the notion that it's only for toffs, which discourages a lot of regular people from even looking into going.
On the other hand, football is considered working class, despite often being much more expensive to follow.
Comments
Off tangent post of the day! Congrats.
That's not my experience at the local tennis club I used to be a member of. Every member had the chance to be in the ballot and had an equal chance of winning (the first year we were in it, we got the men's final!).
Membership of the club was open to absolutely anyone who wanted to join and pay the fee (which, from memory, wasn't that high). This is a rural club with good facilities.
I guess some clubs work differently.
He would have been invited whoever was in power, it's only fitting that he should have been given the honour of being invited to number 10 whichever party were in power, some things rise above party politics, and seeing him stood next to David Cameron hasn't done anything to make me give the Tories credit for his win!!
Oh so you have to be a member of a club just to get the chance to buy a ticket.
That explains a lot. Why don't they just put them on ticket master and give the whole public a chance?
Yes, but usually you get allocated the non-toff seats right in the nose bleed back rows of the show courts.
Given there is a 15,000 capacity on Centre, why only 500? Can't they do about 1,500 queueing tickets? 10% for people who are willing to put in that much effort isn't too much.
This isn't the show court experience I had (through ballot or resale tickets).
:eek::D
The Henmans still seem to be there for every match on Centre Court these days!
This annoys me. I would love to be on the show courts and others are leaving their seats empty to watch on the hill. If people leave for substantial periods of time, their show court tickets should be taken from them.
You can't make requests about which week you want through the public ballot.
So true!
Unfortunately, "royalty" these days is the likes of Victoria Beckham and James Corden. :rolleyes:
I guess Andy wanted to visit Downing Street, can't blame him, plus it would have been rude to turn the PM down. Wouldn't it be funny if Andy had said no, and suggested meeting Cameron without any cameras present at another time?
Of course all clubs aren't the same, mine's in a fairly affluent area and wasn't cheap to join.
As I said earlier, juniors regardless of ability, weren't allowed to use the two best grass courts, "everything came second to mixed doubles."
As a one time member of the council, it was possible to "black ball" any applicant, (the balls and box used were over a hundred years old!) if someone on it didn't want them to be admitted. It rarely happened, but when it did, the rest of the council accepted the wishes of the objector.
Gees tennis is a lot worse than I thought. You would think things like this would die out and human beings would move on but no.
How pathetic somebody wants to join a sports club but they are bared just because somebody who went to a comitie meeting occasionally puts a black ball in a bag.
I wish I could just say this is pathetic but it's actually sick and against everything sport should stand for.
A proportion of tickets are allocated to tennis clubs to distribute to their members. This is to make sure that people who actually play tennis, and are involved all year round, have a decent chance of going.
A proportion of tickets are allocated to an open ballot. Anyone can enter that.
Another portion of tickets are held back and released daily on ticketmaster.
More tickets are released each morning to those who have queued up.
There's also the debenture tickets, which are for the wealthy, and I'm sure a good few set aside for Wimbledon members, the corporate guests, and VIPs invited by the club/tournament itself.
I'm sure they could improve the system, in particular how they organise the general public ballot to make it less convoluted, but overall it's a decent system that lets a wide range of people access to the tournament. The problem is that there is considerably more demand for tickets than actual tickets.
They could up the prices accordingly and shove them all on ticketmaster. It would be easier, and they'd make more money. However, the rich would benefit, while tennis fans would suffer.
IMO, the biggest issue is that some idiots like to peddle the notion that it's only for toffs, which discourages a lot of regular people from even looking into going.
On the other hand, football is considered working class, despite often being much more expensive to follow.