 | | | | Tennis fans | | June in south west London. Outside the buildings of The All England Lawn Tennis Club a queue of people discuss the price of strawberries - high; the chances of Henman winning - high; and the chance of a sudden rain shower - even higher. Yes, it's Wimbledon fortnight. | | 
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| Some supporters queue all night. Others take a day off work. All want to see their favourite tennis star - whether it's Britain's hope Tim Henman, women's number 8 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova from Russia, or world No 1 Roger Federer from Switzerland.
Federer, winner of the 2003 men's final, was rewarded by the citizens of the Swiss city of Gstaad with a gift worthy of a champion - a cow. (This moove- sorry, move - provoked an outbreak of some cheesy puns in the press, though they hoped that Federer wouldn't milk the applause.)
The enthusiastic support of Henman's fans over his ten previous appearances at Wimbledon has led to the term 'Henmania' being coined. They started a tradition of wearing exotic clothes and hats and bringing whistles and horns into the ground to support their hero. This year some of these accessories have been banned on security grounds. (And on musical grounds, in the case of the whistles and horns.)
But tennis is not the only sport with fans at Wimbledon. As players and fans left the ground on the evening of 22nd June a number of them paused to watch TV screens showing an up and coming sporting hero, Wayne Rooney, scoring against Croatia in the Euro 2004 championships.
| | June in south west London this piece is written in a humorous style rather than in the style of a normal sports report Britain's hope the most likely British player to win number 8 seed 'seed' is the ranking given to a player: a number 8 seed is regarded as a better player than a number 28 seed men's final the last men's singles match of a tournament moove some news reports include puns, an amusing way of using two words which have more than one meaning, or which have the same sound, so that what you say has two different meanings. In English, the sound cows make is 'moo'. This has the same vowel sound as 'move'. cheesy puns 'cheesy' means both something in bad style or of cheap quality, and also tasting of cheese - which comes from milk from cows milk the applause farmers 'milk' cows to get the milk from them, and actors 'milk the applause' if they try to get as much applause as possible from the audience Henmania a mania is an excessively strong liking for something or someone. Put that with the name Henman and you get 'henmania' coined if you coin a word or phrase, you invent it exotic clothes unusual and interesting (although here it implies that they're a bit too unusual) accessories used to describe articles related to clothes: a smart belt to go with dark trousers, gloves to go with a handbag, a plain scarf to go with a jacket on security grounds something that is 'grounds for something' is the reason or justification for it - here, there are worries that the accessories may be used as weapons on musical grounds here, the distracting noise made by the horns and whistles is seen as a type of music ground area of land used for something - here, tennis up and coming someone who is likely to be successful in the future | |
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