I T was a normal day in Herald Towers.

The sports editor threw the crusts of his raw meat sandwiches to a crowd of scavenging work experience boys. There was the gentle crack of a whip on the punishment yard, or the break-out area as the management insist on calling it.

Big Matty came in with an expression that curdled the congealed fat on my upper lip. I ventured to break a tension so strong, so creeping, it could have trapped an Arctic sailing vessel.

"Wimbledon is my second home," I told him. He replied: "So it is damp, untidy and bereft of people who love you."

I tried to respond but he had parked his racing bike in the gap between my front teeth. A gap that hitherto had not existed. But my sentiments remain unchanged, which is more than one can say for the enamel on my gnashers.

I love Wimbledon.

There was a moment on Wednesday night when there were more call-offs than the morning after The Herald sports desk ate that giant, communal curry and washed it down with that litre of sweet sherry liqueur the sports editor keeps for times of crisis.

Then the stress levels were turned up so high that a Russian tennis correspondent who once worked as a safety officer at Chernobyl said it had been his most trying day ever. This occurred after Roger Federer was sent packing by a guy who normally uses his racquet not to defeat Greatest Players of All Time but to beat carpets. But we endured.

I love Wimbledon.

It has special factors. It is organised by a group of amateurs but run by exemplary professionals. There is a pleasing rhythm to the day. One has the same seat, goes to the same restaurant, has the same walk to and from Southfields, and heads to the same courts.

It is like a reality television show in which the scenes remain eerily similar though the cast diminishes as the week goes on. Reporters leave as their star players are knocked out. There was a stampede of the press pack on Wednesday that was so spectacular David Attenborough is to recreate it for his next nature documentary.

I love Wimbledon.

Then there are the fans. They wait so long in queues that one suspects they are the subjects not of a ticket quest but a ransom note. There are those who have done less time for armed robbery. But some of these besotted tennis types manage to enter the grounds and that is where the magic begins.

Some of the spectators at Wimbledon are eejits and not all of them write columns for The Herald. However, most of them make Wimbledon a special place to work. There is a happiness that permeates them and not all of it is sponsored by Pimm's.

One can spot the newcomers as they make their way through the maze of outside courts and take photographs of the scoreboard or the large order-of-play board. They are at their most innocently vulnerable when they enter a show court. Their mouths open in surprise as they take in the scene before them.

I love Wimbledon.

It is even better when one can provide tickets for mates. A friend of mine is a Pole dancer. She is a member of the national ballet corps in Warsaw. She came along on Wednesday and found herself watching people fall over in a variety of courts before buying a resale ticket for the Centre Court and witnessing Federer reprise the role of a swan in a famous ballet.

I love Wimbledon.

It is a place that surpasses expectation. Once I watched on TV screens in Possil and Busby. Now, I am a regular extra in one of the greatest shows on earth. I am ringside for the major battles.

I can sit quietly in the interview room and marvel at the humility of Rafael Nadal in defeat and wince at the pain of Federer, who would rather have been in Helmand on Wednesday night than in front of the press after a devastating defeat.

I can have a sandwich in the players' restaurant and nod to Ivan Lendl as if I know him. I can sit on the designated Herald seat on Centre Court at any time. And I can tell Big Matty all about it.

I love Wimbledon.