And so it begins

Unlike my colleague and co-blogger gypsum, who has seen the start of the first day of the championships for many years, I've previously only ever been here during 'build week'. The IBM Internet team call it build week, but to be honest all the 'building' has been done - it's more to do with final testing and tweaking and making everything 'just so'. [Having said that, others not in the IBM team really do seem to call it 'build' week as one year I saw bags of (hopefully quick-drying) cement lying around 36 hours before the start].

When I have toured the site during build week in previous years, I have been struck by the almost military planning and organisation that permeates throughout the grounds. Tables to paint, flowers to plant, PA-systems to test, grass to cut and mow (and, believe it or not, mopped - to ensure each individual blade is ram-rod straight). Everyone has a job to do and do it they must; the Championships won't be delayed because any task is incomplete. And every year, all tasks are done and the hive of activity always ensures a perfect start.

This year, however, I am joining gypsum and the rest of the IBM team throughout the Championships and so this morning was my first chance to experience the actual first day. After a fitful night's sleep of waking up every hour, on the hour in a sudden panic of "don't sleep through your alarm!", I finally stopped trying and got up at 4am and began my journey to SW19. The trains were not full and the taxis and buses flowed freely - either because or the ludicrous hour or because the drivers, like IBM, have been doing this for a while and know how to make things flow freely and easily (we are, after all, living in the age that sees the dawning of the 'smarter cabbie').

At 9:30am certain strategic gates were opened to the public and the eager fans were ushered into a 'holding zone' just inside the grounds. They waited patiently, while tennis players got some last-minute practice in, just out of sight behind the green screens. The throng grew and swelled and then at 10:30 the long-awaited PA announcement was made: "Stewards - please open the gates!". Stood on the roof of the Broadcast Centre, I watched waiting for a Pamplona-style stampede up the main avenue. But of course that never happened. Instead, a line of stewards walked slowly up, holding a fine line to corral the fans behind them. Then they simply melted away and the multitude began to flow into the grounds. Some stepped briskly...some even half-jogged. But there was no stampede. As the numbers passed various outer courts, some peeled-off and filtered through the walkways; others continued with purposeful vision - a plan in mind. Within moments, all the walkways were teeming and seats began to fill up. It was like watching a stream of water flow into an intricately designed obstacle course, flowing this way and that, following the course of least resistance...but, ultimately, finding it's way.

It was unstoppable.

It also made me glad I was stood safely on top of a building, out of harms way.