Two years ago, I had one of the luckiest breaks of my life: I became a Wimbledon line umpire.
It was my first ever gig at Wimbledon, and it was also my last. By the next year, all 320 line umpires had been replaced by robots.
Quite unwittingly, I had become Wimbledon’s last linesman.
Most line umpires were gutted that they wouldn’t get to be parading on Centre Court again in their fancy £3,000 Ralph Lauren uniforms – but for me, I was thrilled even to have got there.
It all started, as so many of the best things in my life have started, with my wife Margot.
We’d been watching Wimbledon on TV, and I’d been rather taken by the line umpires. Their gorgeous clothes, their teamwork, the way they looked like they’d been carved out of granite. “Wouldn’t it be great to be a line umpire?” I said.
Margot gave the obligatory spousal reply: “You are so full of hot air!”
That was all the incentive I needed. Within 15 minutes I had applied to the Lawn Tennis Association to become an umpire.
Soon enough I had forgotten all about it, but the LTA had most certainly not forgotten about me. Well over a year later, I got the call.
After a one-day course in St Andrews, I qualified as a lowly L4 line umpire and, after I’d bought my LTA gear (chinos and various blue tops), was allowed to call the lines at amateur tournaments.
My first tournament was in Glasgow. It was real first-day-of-term nerves. I didn’t know where to stand, or how to stand, and as for the business of actually calling the lines, it was an absolute nightmare.
Over the next year, I was on the receiving end of a lot of abuse from the players. One young lad, only 18, had a single delicious adjective to describe my line calls – “Terrible!” The last time I saw him he followed up his usual expletive by telling me, “You’ve only got one job to do!” Life does not get any sweeter.
After a few months, I took the chair umpire course, which meant that I could now chair low-tier tennis matches as well as call the lines at professional tournaments.
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I was now being abused by not just teenage players but also their coaches and, most especially, their parents.
Wimbledon, of course, was the dream, and I’d put in well over 70 days on the lines before receiving my great Golden Ticket. Margot was suitably flabbergasted.
A trip to Ralph Lauren on New Bond Street, in London, to be kitted out with my uniform – one friend described it as “Camp as Christmas”. My favourite piece of kit was the green-tinted sunglasses. The blue blazer, with its multi-coloured lining, is a real show-stopper, though it’s a little strong to wear outside Wimbledon.
My Wimbledon pass gave me access to all of the hideaways that the punters never get to see: the enormous tunnel that stretches from Court 3 up to Number One Court, with all its various offshoots that can even take you down to Aorangi Park; the umpires’ subterranean buttery, perfect for gossiping and grazing; and the clubhouse, covered with Boston Ivy and reeking of history.
Wimbledon has no written rules for its umpires, but the list of unwritten rules is as long as your arm.
It was known as The Wimbledon Way and it covered everything from how you stepped onto the court – jacket on, middle button done up – to which line you took, walking in on the inside and going out on the outside.
On court, the seven-strong team of line umpires (nine on Centre and Number One Court) all had to sit in unison. There were also very specific rules for how we were actually seated: your feet had to be square on the ground, knees at 90 degrees, hands on thighs.
One time my team had been cooking on court for more than 15 minutes after a match, and I’d started to squirm a bit. I’d stretched out my legs and scratched my chest. I may even have yawned.
This warranted the most ferocious ticking off from one of the Off-Court Technical Advisers who would prowl the courts and lecture us on the finer aspects of The Wimbledon Way.
Occasionally you’d see big-name players being escorted to their matches, or indeed big-name spectators heading to Centre Court, but talking to them, or even registering them, would have been a complete no-no.
As a newbie linesman, I was allowed one day on one of the semi show-courts, Court 18, with well over 500 spectators.
One of the more surreal moments of my life was being on the centre service line looking down the court at a young American, Ben Shelton, on a really hot day with a baying mob of American spectators.
Ben had a big serve, one of the fastest in the Championships. It often felt like these thunderbolts were coming straight at my head.
Ben winged me, but he didn’t quite get me full on – and all the while, some crazy spectator was yelling, “You can’t stop the serve!” When we weren’t on court, we could go and watch any match we liked. Slipping into Centre Court for 30 minutes to watch a bit of Emma Raducanu.
And now, after 147 years, all of Wimbledon’s line judges have been dumped to make way for the robots. To echo my favourite teenage tennis player, I think the decision was “Terrible!”
The robots are obviously going to call the lines more accurately than mere humans – but what of that? I would guess that well over 90 per cent of spectators would love to have the line umpires back. Seeing a linesman get hit is quite the spectacle – as is waiting for an appeal.
One more tiny thing: the robots were brought in to Wimbledon because it’s “what the players wanted”. Excuse me? Most of the players aren’t even British. They couldn’t give a hoot for Wimbledon’s history or its traditions.
But me – I’ve been there. And I know that, unlike the soulless robots, the linesmen make for the most superb theatre.
Wimbledon Rogue, by William Coles, is published by Legend Press, price £9.99.
