I decided that I was willing to wake up at 4am (at home) and get there as quickly as I could. I researched the exact train times and found that it was easier to take the train as opposed to the tube. The guide specifically says not to drive, of course (no parking).
There was a train connection that would have saved me 20 minutes, but I only had 5 minutes to switch trains and my first train left 7 minutes late.
I started to feel the excitement as I was walking about 2 blocks before arriving at the club. It was strangely quiet and I was wondering, "Will I get in? How many people camped? Where is the camp? This is a Monday, and the Elite 8, is that a great day or a tough day to get in?" I did start seeing Wimbledon signs, I'm sure that was part of the building excitement.
As I turned the corner and saw the club, I started to see people, but it was still relatively quiet. That's when I saw my first sign for "The Queue". That's the line for non-ticket holders. It looked empty, nice!
I followed two guys in front of me, they looked like they knew where they were going. It was another 5-10 walk to the field where everyone was camping. The red pin shows where I stood.
Then I saw the crowds, standing in a field. My heart sunk a little as it sure looked close to 6000 people and it was only about 6:20am. I kept the faith and followed the 2 guys and the guidance of many many volunteers. They had lined the field with letters a-z and each line held about 500 people. They told us that we'd receive a "queue card" with our number on it. I was 3916 and all of a sudden I had renewed hope of getting in!
Lots of volunteers walked the queue to sell things. It wasn't too annoying until it started being non-tennis related stuff, even then it wasn't bad. I bought a blanket to sit on, it came with a bag, a newspaper and a chocolate bar, all of which seemed like life critical items at the moment :) There were two very popular games in the queue, one was the iPhone game where you hold it on your forehead and other people try to get you to say the word on the screen, the other was handball or whatever you call the game where two people each wear a hard paddle on one hand and swat it back and forth.
Everyone was nice and patient in line, I think we all knew this was an all day journey. Approximately once per hour, we'd all stand up and slide forward about 100 yards.
On a side note, there were some parallels between the well oiled machine of Wimbledon and large organizations. They knew how to keep people happy and engaged in the crowd, and they knew how long it takes to move large crowds. It was a nice physical reminder that it takes time, planning and effort to pull off large scale change. It caused me to think about "open innovation tournaments" and if they might be effective at work.
Around 10am, the queue started moving towards the stadium. Sure enough, we were on our way in! They had built cool pathways with nice signs, as well as digital screens with games and trivia. They checked our queue card multiple times and the security checkpoint was almost as serious as an international airport. It was £20 to get in, which is a fraction of the face value for tickets, let alone the street value.
Once I got in, I went straight to the resell line. I had learned where it was during the tour. I expected it to be hundreds of people long, but I was number 50! I asked around and most people thought the weather, and the fact that Andy Murray was the second game, meant that we probably wouldn't get in until after 5pm.
The guys next to me were nice enough to let me walk around and watch some live tennis. I watched a women's matchup between Smitkova and Safarova. I'm sorry but I could tell during warm ups that Safarova wanted it more. She dominated the first set 6-0 and won the second set 6-2. Smitkova would shrug her shoulders after lost points and she did other visible things that seemed to prove she just wasn't on her game. Again I see parallels to work and life, I think it's critically important to prepare, bring your A game, be resilient and demonstrate your winning attitude.
Then we had the standard Wimbledon rain delay. Took about 30, maybe 45 minutes. I checked the weather before I came and I chose not to bring a brolly since the chances of rain looked small. Good thing I bought a blanket, and even better that it's half blanket and half plastic-jacket. Play has resumed and I've made lots of friends in queue since were all half soaked and laughing now. Within the next hour or two I'll find out if I get into any of the big courts.
One at a time tickets came out. They were mostly for court one and two. All of a sudden, even though there were 10 people in front of me, I was the only "single ticket" remaining. A ticket became available and I was in! I knew from the tv screens that the score at the time was 6-4, 3-0 for Andy. I was so excited, she had to remind me to give her £10 before I ran off.
I walked so fast over to Centre Court. It was something special to walk up the pristine concrete stairs with purple edges. The same ones I walked up during the tour, but this was the real deal now!
My seat was amazing! It was right in the corner, basically in line with the baseline. The roar of the crowd was fantastic. I was sitting there watching a game from a stadium that I've seen on tv from thousands of miles away for my entire life. What an experience.
I stayed for one more match between Djovokic and Tsonga. Djovokic was a pretty heavy favorite and the crowd was noticeably more quiet in comparison to the Murray match.
I noticed a few open seats on the other side of the stadium. You know they only allow people to move in between every 3rd game and it's a very short timescale (maybe 2-3 minutes). After watching for a set or two, the crowd starting rooting for Tsonga and I decided to try the closer seats.
The guard let me right in and I walked down to the second row! I say there in awe as I was eye level with two of the greatest players in the world. I could hear the hiss of the 130 mph serves. After 6 games, a guard came straight to me and asked for my ticket, so I apologised for moving down and he said no problem, just move :)
I went back to my original seat, which by the way, someone else was now sitting in. So I sat a few seats closer and enjoyed the last set where Tsonga gave a great effort thanks to a packed house giving him full support.
Then it was over. I knew instantly that I'd probably never have an opportunity like this again. I sat there for a few minutes to soak it in. It felt like being in little league when you win the championship, that emotionally flooding moment of "wow, I'm here, we did it, unbelievable, I wonder if it'll happen again, let me love every second of this"
To think, it all started because a garden tool broke and they asked the locals to attend a tournament to pitch in and pay to fix the tool. I love how inspiring that is.
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