Wimbledon.

I followed every stroke, grunt and whack, not on the telly, or even the radio, but whilst reading the Sunday papers. With the hot weather all windows and doors were open and Trisha over the back was prone to scream and shout like a five-year-old, with odd bursts of ‘Come on Andy.’ Well, I’m old enough to remember ‘C’mon Irene,’ sung by a couple of curly-haired down- and- outers wearing overalls. It even went to number 1. The last time I watched Wimbledon Bjorn Borg was wielding his state of the art wooden bat. Andy Murray is different though. For one he’s Scottish and for two he likes England to get beaten by whoever’s playing them. He used to play tennis against Shaun Maloney. That’s not really fair. Anybody can beat a dwarf. But being Scottish has its downside. I turned the telly on at 5.10 pm. It was advantage the other guy. It was still advantage the other guy three shots later. One of them had hit the net and died on Andy’s side of the court. Up until that point Andy had been doing quite well. He was two sets ahead and had three match points. He lost them all, of course, being a Scot if there’s an easy way and a hard way, there’s really no way of going easy on yourself. But then it gets all quantum physics: if someone that never watches tennis comes in and starts watching-can he jinx you? The camera did a slow-mo on Andy’s face as he lost another point. A quick pan to look at his mother’s agony and a sliced camera angle to show Andy’s girlfriends is a bit of a darling. Pan left and right and the camera begins to sniff out celebrities. Andy knows I’m watching. Being Scottish he also know the law of glorious failure. Two sets up, three match points to win the match, the crowd roaring him on. It can only end in one-way. Get your money on Andy to win Sport’s Personality of the Year. It’s a sure-fire winner, unless I watch it.