Henmaniacs

I like Henman but don’t like Henmania. A poor follow-up to The Killers original single, but the truth none the less. You have to feel for Tim Henman, no really you do. He built a solid career as Britain’s best male tennis player for almost a quarter of a century and yet has since been pigeon-holed by the media as the token comic loser. All this because he failed to live up to the media’s own hype and expectation by winning Wimbledon.

The fact that Henman was only denied by the two most successful tennis players of all time in Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, isn’t really worth bringing up when you can get a bigger laugh by suggesting you could beat him when pissed. So, with all that in mind I am prepared to stick up for Henman now, but only now I have realised one thing… that Henman was in no way responsible for Henmania.

OK, he can be connected with it, you know given that they were watching and cheering for him, but he is not responsible for the fans he seemed to bring in. Henman tried for the bad boy image, by whacking a ball in the face of a ballgirl at one of his earliest Wimbledon appearances. But, sadly tennis, and particularly the Open tennis championship at Wimbledon is a distinctly middle class affair and so Henman’s support had already been decided.

And so it came to pass that the last week of June and the first week of July would become a fortnight of terror for Henman as he was stalked by a distinct creature. Union Jack clad, flag waving, daft hat wearing, twee, hysterical menopausal women of middle age, middle class and middle England. If you were plagued by that sort of following would you be able to concentrate on a second serve at break back point deep in the fourth set? No, me neither.

As daunting as this would have been on the court, at least out there on the green stuff Henman was safely protected from these creatures by distance and barriers. Not to mention of course a battalion of assorted armed forces personnel he hired as bodyguards who would casually lurk at every exit. However, when the matches were over Henman then had the daunting prospect of facing one of these Henmaniacs face to face, mano-a-mano. The eager, fawning, ever doting probably slightly moist Sue Barker.

No wonder Tim Henman never dared win Wimbledon, he was probably terrified of being groped to a pulp by Sue Barker and Princess Michael of Kent. No-one wants that. Not even Cliff Richard.