Why Andy Murray is Britain's greatest ever sportsman - and how the vanity of one man and the weakness of another cost the most talented squad at the Euros
- In 2013, Andy Murray became the first British star to win Wimbledon since 1936
There was a scene that caused some mild amusement to a colleague and me at Wimbledon on Friday afternoon. We were perched on a terrace overlooking a corner of the grounds by Centre Court and it is without equal for a spot of people-watching in these parts.
The people we happened to watch were two women who had stopped to stare at a line of ball kids waiting for their next assignment. They were so fascinated by this brush with the ensemble that a man passed by unnoticed behind them and went about the suave business of being Roger Federer.
This can be that kind of place. History can creep around on light toes and it can scream and bounce off the green walls.
It lives in the old statue of Fred Perry, which at 9.30pm that night still had a queue of 10 or so wanting to pose for a picture. It lives in the former champions you spot on the walkways. It lives in John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova in the commentary booth. It lives in the elegant white lettering on the honours boards and it lives in the grass and in the rain and on the hill with the changing name.
The air is thick with history here and it passes from visitor to visitor, like shareholders in a collective energy source. It is a history that can inspire and suffocate and I’m not sure any place in British sport inspires and suffocates with the same measures they serve at Wimbledon, where 50 weeks of indifference to tennis make way each year to a fortnight of the most frenzied, blinding and intense brand of interest.
Andy Murray is up there with the very best British sportsmen in history - and could be the best
Murray defeated Novak Djokovic to win his first Wimbledon championship in July 2013
The veteran's Wimbledon career is over after Emma Raducanu's mixed doubles withdrawal
The Scotsman's final match at Wimbledon came with his brother Jamie in the men's doubles
It isn’t the Maracana. It isn’t the Bombonera. It isn’t Galatasaray away. Because it’s a different sort of noise. A different sort of crowd and expectation. But for pounds of pressure per square inch on a shoulder blade, it is something unique, strange, brilliant and terrifying for those athletes from these isles when they step on to the lawns and into our field of vision.
Win two matches and we’ll interview your former teachers. Win three and you’re on BBC Breakfast. Win four and you’ve passed Jeremy Bates, Heather Watson and Laura Robson. Win five and you’ve gone by Greg Rusedski. Lose a sixth too often and your disappointment becomes our disappointment and our disappointment becomes your label.
Which usually makes me think of Tim Henman.
I bumped into him on Thursday night, but he was shattered by then. He knows the weight of this cathedral better than anyone and Thursday weighed a lot. His first interviews had started at 7.30am and by then it was 9.20pm and he had just made it back from Centre Court, where he had been part of the tribute parade to a man who finally got it done.
We don’t talk about Andy Murray without talking about Henman. Henman is his context. It takes a Henman to fully appreciate a Murray. Henman was strong enough for four semi-finals, but Murray is stronger because he felt all of that on his shoulders, the snowball of 77 years of history, he breathed that thin and thick air, and he found the most magnificent ways to stay upright.
Tim Henman made it to four semi-finals but never quite had enough to triumph at SW19
Hundreds of fans gathered on Murray Mount to watch the tributes on Centre Court this week
When Judy Murray walked up to Henman, he touched her gently on the shoulder. ‘Brilliant,’ he said, and what more was there to say? Who better to say it? To know it.
And now Murray is just about done, broken into tiny pieces and long scars by his climb.
Has there ever been a greater British sportsman? I don’t think so. You might prefer to head to Silverstone this weekend and see greatness through the lens of one man’s dominance of his craft. Lewis Hamilton is a great argument in these trivial conversations.
Mail Sport's Riath Al-Samarrai
Another could be made for Nick Faldo and those six majors. Or Steve Redgrave, or Daley Thompson, 40 years after he mastered the Olympic decathlon a second time. Or Bobby Charlton or Jonny Wilkinson, the threader of those posts in Sydney, or Ronnie O’Sullivan, staying on the highwire of his neuroses and finding genius for more than 20 years.
I wouldn’t argue against any of them. Just as I wouldn’t argue against Laura Kenny, Jason Kenny or a missile named Mark Cavendish. I also wouldn’t argue against something closer to where I’m writing this column. On Friday I walked the concourse that feeds into Centre Court and found the honours board for the gentlemen’s doubles, because next to ‘1921’ is the name behind one of my favourite stories in sport: M Woosnam.
That being Max, who also won doubles gold at the Olympics, captained England in football, hit a century at Lord’s and played golf off scratch. Better still, he once accepted an invitation to Charlie Chaplin’s home, schooled him on his own tennis court, and then beat him at table tennis using a butter knife. Chaplin could just about handle that; getting thrown into his swimming pool mid-speech was another matter and dear old Max had worn out his welcome.
F1 superstar Lewis Hamilton would be in the conversation for greatest ever British sportsman
Murray poses with the Wimbledon trophy after claiming his second championship in 2016
We can choose how we view greatness and how we assess claims across eras and disciplines. But for me it is Murray.
It will always be found in how he wore the history of this place, how he withstood such crushing pressures, how he climbed this particular beanstalk in a time of Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic and burgled the giants not once but twice.
It will always be found in how he spoke along the way, in the causes he championed and the choices he made. In the career that became synonymous with triumph through bloody-minded perseverance and the words that shaped into a moral compass and a reflex: what would Andy Murray do?
The answer is that he would win in the ways that this grand old place, this monument to history, will never forget.
Ronaldo's vanity cost Portugal dear
I wrote in this space last week about Cristiano Ronaldo and the infuriating beauty of being the last man on the pitch to know when the game is up.
Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal crashed out of Euro 2024 after losing to France on penalties
Roberto Martinez refused to remove Ronaldo from Portugal's XI and ultimately paid the price
Portugal’s defeat by France in the quarter-finals in Germany might be further proof of the point that his inclusion does more to destabilise a team than strengthen it, but expecting him to volunteer that conclusion was a fool’s errand.
Only a strong manager could impart that message and quite damningly Roberto Martinez showed himself incapable of doing so.
With it, the most talented squad at the Euros sold itself out to the vanity of one man and the weakness of another.
Wimbledon's not the same without Dicko
There has been a vacant desk in the Wimbledon media centre and it is painfully clean.
Wimbledon is a magical place but it is not quite the same without the late, great Mike Dickson
This is a magical place but it is not quite the same without our late, great tennis correspondent Mike Dickson, whose wonderful copy would be prised free from the messiest, most cluttered table in the building.
We all dearly miss that sight of brilliant chaos.
