Trauma for tennis fans on slow line to nowhere

The official explanation for this outrage was earlier signal failure at Barking. Barking? I very nearly was, by the time the train eventually arrived

Last Thursday I had the misfortune to attend a great British sporting event.

Don't get me wrong. It was no hardship whatever to sit on Centre Court at Wimbledon watching Justine Henin demolish the Grand Slam hopes of Jennifer Capriati in a scintillating semi-final. Getting to Wimbledon, however, was a nightmare. That well-known tennis enthusiast Alexander Solzhenitsyn could have written a novel about it – the District Line Gulag, a tale of suffering beyond endurance.

I live 12 miles from Wimbledon as the crow flies, lucky sod. On Thursday I set off at 10.15am, giving myself plenty of time to get to SW19 for a 1pm start. Yes? No. When finally I made it to the All England Club, more than two hours later, I felt as if I'd tramped across all England to get there.

Not even Capriati on Centre Court would later feel as miserable as I, and several thousand fellow-travellers, had at Earl's Court. I mean, you would think that with 35,000 tennis fans descending on Wimbledon every day for a fortnight, some bright spark at London Underground, if that is not an oxymoron, would think: "I know what! We'll provide more trains!"

Alas, it was not so. Far from there being more trains than usual, there were fewer. One by one, they pulled into Earl's Court bound for other destinations; for Richmond, for Ealing Broadway, for Wichita, Winnipeg and all stations to the Windward Islands for all I knew or cared, but not for bloody Wimbledon. We waited nearly 50 minutes. The platform became horribly crowded, and it was more by luck than design that folk didn't start to topple onto the track. I thought up a new marketing slogan. 'The world's greatest tennis tournament. Come and be electrified by Sampras, Agassi, Rafter and Henman... if the District Line doesn't get you first'.

The official explanation for this outrage, incidentally, was earlier signal failure at Barking. Barking? I very nearly was, by the time the train eventually arrived. And then we were told that it was not actually travelling all the way to Southfields, the nearest station to the All England Club, but inexplicably terminating at Parson's Green, where we would have to get off and wait for the next one.

To make matters worse, the Parson's Green train then took root at Earl's Court. The temperature rose and rose. You could have fried an egg on my forehead, although I might not have thanked you for trying. An elderly American woman, clearly about to faint, had to be helped off. She could have got half-way to Flushing Meadow in the time it had taken her to get half-way to Wimbledon. I felt embarrassed on my country's behalf.

Nor is it only Wimbledon that is blighted by Britain's decrepit transport system. The struggle to get to and from Twickenham rugby internationals by train can only be excused on the grounds that it provides an interesting virtual reality experience; you get to learn what rucks, mauls and collapsing scrums feel like. And Wembley, may its Twin Towers rest in peace, was scarcely any better.

To get to the Euro 2000 qualifier between England and Scotland, for example, I recall catching a Metropolitan Line tube which, just outside Finchley Road station, stopped moving forward and started moving sideways, not unlike David Batty. The journey from Finchley Road to Wembley Park, one stop, took 40 minutes, with England and Scotland fans trapped in the closest possible proximity, Scottish noses pressed against English armpits. An ugly scene seemed inevitable. After all, I'm a pretty peaceful soul, and even I felt like punching the sharp-elbowed character next to me on the journey to Wimbledon last week. It wasn't the fact that she was 85 that stopped me, either; I just couldn't swing my arms.

Memo to politicians: if you don't want sports fans to behave like animals, stop treating them like cattle. Sport is not organic. It needs external nutrients, among them a civilised, fully-functioning transport system. And until we get one, we are unfit to host the World Cup, let alone the Olympics. We are barely fit to host a Grand Prix. And if you don't believe me, then try getting in and out of Silverstone on Sunday.

As always, the British Grand Prix will be shrouded with irony. The irony being that Formula One fans drive away from Silverstone, their ears still ringing with the screams of cars belting round a track at 200 miles per hour, covering 200 metres per hour if they're lucky. As with most great British sporting events, the wonder is that people put up with it.

On the other hand, last week I predicted that Tim Henman would not get past Todd Martin to reach Wimbledon's quarter-finals, so what do I know, except that, to see Timmy in next year's final, I'll be setting off the day before.

b.viner@independent.co.uk