![]() For those who had waited patiently in the morning rain wanted some joy for their grounds passes, not the bleak pantomime of seeing officials trying to shift jigsaw pieces with leaf-blowers.Įspecially not when it happened twice in one day. That proportion threatens to mushroom after the movement’s foot soldiers gatecrashed the sacred acres of SW19. It is an impeccable bellwether of middle England, this tournament, and once again the prevailing sentiment of spectators mirrored that of the nation.Īfter Edred Whittingham, a student at Exeter, had carpeted the green baize at the Crucible in April with garish orange dust, surveys indicated that a majority in the country held an unfavourable opinion of Just Stop Oil. The reaction was one of grim fury, with cries of “Oh no, not again” and “Get them out of here”. The crowd on Court 18 did not sound, after having their afternoon’s entertainment so rudely interrupted by the eco-zealots, as if they were in any mood to reconsider a flight to New Zealand or buy shares in Tesla. ![]() And this is the problem for Just Stop Oil: after their third foray in three months into a cherished British sporting event, their incursions are greeted with neither alarm nor horror, but plain contempt. The moral of the tale is that a stunt never has the same shock value the second time around. Where Johnson had left beaten finalist MaliVai Washington “flustered”, all Roberts received was a short spell in Wimbledon police station for his trouble. ![]() John McEnroe called for “replays from all angles”, while Peter Seddon observed in his book Tennis’s Strangest Matches how “17-year-old Lord Frederick Windsor looked as if he hadn’t enjoyed a tennis match so much in years – and the knock-up hadn’t even begun”.īut six years later, self-proclaimed “professional streaker” Mark Roberts copied Johnson’s loose interpretation of the dress code and found himself an instant footnote. When Melissa Johnson, a 23-year-old waitress, became the first person to run across Centre Court naked during the 1996 men’s final, the reaction was less one of horror than thinly concealed approval. Once, there was a jolting novelty to the act, but now it is all a little low-rent and predictable. Increasingly, the Just Stop Oil agitators are morphing into the streakers of our age. Mind you, it was a Wimbledon special-edition jigsaw, so at least the club shop extracted some extra cash from them first. It was as if, to protect the delicate sensibilities of daytime viewers, the production team decided not to broadcast the faintly pitiful spectacle of activists scattering orange ticker-tape across the grass from a 1,000-piece jigsaw box. The mother-of-two who has worked as a lap dancer generated a bit of extra entertainment for the crowds who had seen Tiger Woods race away with the title as he avoided the rough.No sooner had two incorrigible attention-seekers frolicked on to Court 18 than the BBC cameras panned discreetly away. This year's Open seemingly became 'open season' for streakers and Jacqui Salmond was just one of them to hit the headlines. July 2000 - Jacqui Salmond at The Open at St Andrews He even had the slogan 'only the balls should bounce' scrawled across his chest in reference to the bra advert featuring the Russian tennis player. Mark Roberts is what is termed a professional streaker, who can list appearances on TV's 'This Morning' programme and at the 1996 Grand National among his previous streaks.īut only last month he chose a Wimbledon doubles match featuring Anna Kournikova to perform his latest stunt. The duo burst out of the Public Enclosure and received a great ovation as they paced down the course, with one of them even diving over the finishing line. Sinndar may have raced away with the Derby but not too far back down the Epsom home straight two naked men were putting in a late bid for a place. She reportedly made £8,000 from television appearances following her 'five minutes of fame'. Roe was accompanied on to the field by Sarah Bennett, but it was the 24-year-old bookshop assistant that caught the public's attention. Perhaps the most famous of all streaks was Erica Roe's 'bouncy' effort at an England - Australia Rugby Union match at Twickenham. Michael Angelow took his life into his own hands when he ran across the scared Lords criket ground and straddled the stumps.įortunately for Angelow he didn't come under the same attack as a fellow cricket streaker once did when Australian Greg Chappell chased after the naked invader and whacked him with his bat. The picture of a policeman covering his 'assets' with his helmet has become a particularly famous image. O'Brien was the first known streaker at a major event and performed his antics during an England - France Rugby Union match at Twickenham. Twenty-five-year-old Australian Michael O'Brien set the trend rolling in 1974.
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