Anyone but the Scot for Wimbledon

IT was like the olden days last week, wasn’t it? Before Sky and Freeview, when all we had to choose from was four channels.

Remember those days? When every time you tuned in it was either something you didn’t want to watch or something you’d already seen.

Like “Thriller”. Now, before Michael Jackson popped his clogs I’d seen the “Thriller” video — all 14 minutes of it — maybe three times. The first when I didn’t know what to expect and then by accident once or twice more.

Now I’ve seen it a million times. Well, maybe not quite a million, but certainly more than six.

It’s not that I disliked Michael Jackson . . . actually, I suppose it IS that I disliked him . . . but I’ve never forgiven him for making white socks fashionable.

I wouldn’t have done him any harm had we met, but I’d never have crossed the road to greet him. And I certainly wouldn’t have chosen to watch his life story. In glorious Technicolor. Every half an hour.

But switch over to escape zombies strutting their stuff and what have we got? Glastonbury.

OK if you’re 18, I suppose. Maybe 18-year-olds these days have a different perception of music. In my day — and remember I had The Stones —we’d have called it caterwauling.

So Glastonbury wasn’t a hit in the Emery house either. With the notable exception of Bruce Springsteen, of course. Now there’s a 58-year-old who can show some youngsters how it’s done. The highlight of our week — Him Indoors was almost beside himself as he sang along with The Boss.

And then, of course, we have Wimbledon. In the good old days we enjoyed matches with McEnroe, Nastase, ice-man Borg and Navratilova. Enough personality to fill Wembley, never mind court number one.

And rain, of course. In the good old days you never booked to go away Wimbledon fortnight because you knew it’d pour down. But that was last year, before The Roof — £80 million they spent on it and what happens? Nothing. Well, almost nothing, in the rain stakes anyway.

And nothing on court either. Who do we champion this year? Surely not the surly Scot who, a mere three years ago was pontificating about how he would support “anyone but England” in the World Cup.

Oh, I know he’s backtracked since, but there’s some of us — those with long memories — who’d claim “well he would, wouldn’t he”.

Wrap yourself in the Union Jack, Murray. Tell me your dear old gran is English. Mutter that the “anyone but England” quote was a mistake. It falls on deaf ears. I don’t believe you.

So come Saturday, if you do manage to get to the final, I for one will be supporting anyone but the Scot.