With another Wimbledon over, plus the Euros football, sports fans and the wider public have now turned to the excitement of the Olympics in Paris. It’s the excitement, in terms of our relationship with time and distance, that I want to contemplate here. Let’s start with time.
I’ll never forget my astonishment when a past client of mine, an avid sports fan, told me he would not be watching the Wimbledon final. Instead, as was his normal practice, Elias would record the televised match while tending the lawns and shrubs of his beautiful Hampstead garden. Once it was over, he would rush inside to find out who had won, and then watch the recording – only by knowing the outcome in advance could he contain his excitement to levels that were, for him, bearable.
By contrast, back in my student days, a ‘housemate’ would go to great pains to ensure that he saw no news and that no-one told him the results of each Saturday’s football, so that his excitement when watching ‘Match of the Day’ in the evening would be heightened by his ignorance of the result. Advance knowledge of the outcome would have rendered watching, and listening to match analysis, pointless.
Despite the preferences shown by Elias and Ian, witnessing sporting events unfold live is in my opinion far more exciting than watching a recording after the event. Even if you don’t know the result, the fact is that the outcome has been determined, and the celebrations are over. Nothing will change the result, even if you don’t yet know it. That knowledge, for me at least, substantially diminishes any excitement that would otherwise prevail.
In 2011, while in Moscow, I followed the Wales versus France rugby semi-final being played in New Zealand, courtesy of word text commentary as issued by the BBC. Far away, not even connected by radio, I was spellbound awaiting each new update despite it being transmitted some 30 seconds behind play. For me, the process was immediate enough to render the event ‘live’ in my mind. Any substantially later issue of those commentary texts would have been meaningless in terms of excitement.
And that is why Wimbledon’s Henman Hill – now renamed Murray’s Mound, has become so special. It combines the benefits of ‘same time’ with (almost) ‘same place’. However, it raises the question as to why anyone would travel across London, or from further afield, merely to sit outside the Centre Court? Yes, there’s a video link, but you can watch a match far better on your TV at home. The reason is, of course, that sense of being there – those hill-bound fans may not be able to see the match other than by video, but they can hear it. They can sense its proximity. And, unlike Elias tending his roses, they can experience it with friends, and as part of a wider audience assembled at the same place
Likewise, fans again gathered to watch this year’s Wimbledon live in public places around the world – Federation Square in Melbourne, and under the Brooklyn Bridge at The Hill in New York to mention but two such venues. In these situations, it is of course a same-time involvement, but not same-place.
This is interesting because, courtesy of broadcasting which has done so much to undermine the importance of being there, there is now a growing interest in being nearly there (Murray’s Mound), because modern IT has effectively turned Wimbledon’s Centre Court inside out: the match can be seen by Mound fans via a huge screen on the external wall of Centre Court.
More remote viewing examples: tickets are sold for seats in Cardiff’s Millenium Stadium that enable fans to watch the Wesh Rugby team play away from home. Likewise at American Airlines Centre in Dallas (a venue, not an airport), basketball and ice-hockey fans can watch (courtesy of videos inside the arena or on the concourse outside) the Mavericks and the Stars when playing away. Everywhere becomes anywhere.
It’s not just being with friends that draws people from their homes to watch these great events– it’s also the identification of belonging together through a place with which they identify some kind of ownership. Supporters therefore talk of their stadium or ground, even though they rarely have any real share of either land or buildings.
Indeed, it is the very building that so often heightens the experience and the excitement. Witness the Kop at Anfield, where the most ardent Liverpool soccer fans sit. And buildings become the context for collective memory, one of the finest examples being the old Wembley football stadium in London, the context for the only time England have won the World Cup, beating Germany 4-2 in 1966.
For some sporting fanatics, the importance of memories even transcended death as they arranged for their ashes to be spread behind the home goal. Alas, so common had that become that most clubs have stopped the practice, instead offering Gardens of Remembrance for the same purpose. You can find out your club’s policy here:
Most laudable among the clubs in their efforts to respect fans and sympathise with the bereaved are the Queen’s Park Rangers football team at their Loftus Road ground. Here is their policy:
‘When the day arrives, you bring about a coffee-jar’s worth of the ashes to Reception on South Africa Road where you will be welcomed by the chaplain. You will be taken to the players’ dressing room where you can look around and take photographs. You will be led down the tunnel and taken pitch-side (walking on the pitch itself is not permitted). The chaplain will lead you round to the goalposts at the Loftus Road end, where he will get you to lay the ashes on a small tray in the vicinity of the goal line, which he will have prepared.
‘Over the next few minutes, he will encourage you and any others to recall together one or two stories and memories, perhaps linked to of your loved one’s keenness for QPR. This is followed by a couple of short prayers, ending with a moment’s quiet. You then return to the tunnel, stopping for photographs in the dugout, then through to Reception where the chaplain will say goodbye.
‘Once you have left, the chaplain will gather the open tray of ashes and look after them until the pitch is dug up and re-seeded at the end of the season – in late May. They are scattered carefully and respectfully, together with other ashes which have been looked after during the season. Again, please note that we can only accept about a coffee-jar’s worth of the ashes. There is no charge made by the club or chaplain for this service.’
A sense of affinity with a space or building can hardly be stronger in life than through the wish, in death, of having your ashes spread there. That may not be a testimony to the power of architecture, but it is certainly testimony to the power of place.