Wander past the back of Court 17 and you might hear the word “oops” a lot. It’s not the sound of players missing shots or struggling with their ball toss, or spectators spilling their Pimm’s, but an acronym in regular usage inside the cabin HQ of the manual scoreboard operatives. OOP is insider lingo for the Order of Play – and the team inside are responsible for making the 1,500 or so name plates that go up and down every day to show spectators who is playing where and when, and the result of their matches once completed.
Collectively, the seven-member team spend 1,120 hours throughout 13 days of Championship action watching the live scores on a computer screen inside their HQ, poised to scoot out when a result comes through, armed with the right numbers in the right order (6-4, 1-6, 9-7 or whatever), and to climb the wooden ladders to insert the score in place. They aim to have the result up inside 10 minutes of confirmation of the final score.
Fans strolling down the North Concourse stop to interact with a “My, how quaint!” or “That was quick!” It’s a popular photo-opp spot, after all, with the gentlemen’s and ladies’ singles draw board as backdrop beneath the ivy-clad Centre Court wall, and it becomes a true of-the-moment image if it is taken with an azure T-shirted scoreboard operative up a ladder brandishing the latest score.
“To feel so involved is one of the highlights of the job,” says team manager Sean Pontin, now in his 31st year in his role. “People love the manual scoreboards and draw boards, because they're handmade and a tradition that has continued down the years.”
These days, the flat rectangular yellow metal nameplates on the draw boards slide into place, but they used to be magnetic. “Every morning we’d arrive at 7.30am to discover at least 20 names had been stolen by fans the night before as they were leaving the Grounds and we'd have to hastily reprint them,” says Pontin. “There must be fridges around the world plastered with Wimbledon competitors’ names. We’ve even seen them go up on ebay!”
The magnetic era is over but Pontin still suffers from residual butterflies about disappearing names. “We start pre-printing before the start of The Championships when the entries come in, then we catch up with wild cards and qualifiers ready for the official draw on Friday. Everything is set up, ready, when we leave on Saturday night. We have Sunday off – but it’s the worst day for me. I still worry that the names will disappear…”
During the Championships, as the mixed doubles entries are confirmed, followed by the junior doubles, there are other concerns for the team of five left for the second week. (Let's have a round of applause for Sean Pontin, Andrew "Bill" Billingham, Luke Pontin, Emily Arnold and James Doyle, who have 71 years' experience between them, without ever having seen a single Championships match in entirety.) Concerns such as spelling, for instance. Correct seedings. “And flags,” says Pontin. “Some are very similar and we have to be so careful with abbreviations… CHI, is it Chile or China? [Chile, China is CHN.]
“In total, we put up 1,358 match results on the Order of Play boards, 1,230 results on the 13 main draw boards – more than 2,500 results in total. The first round name plates include more than 600 seeds and a whopping 1,376 flags, each of which have to be checked and rechecked to make sure we have them right!”
Some names are a challenge to fit on the name plates. When the boys’ doubles draw went up, for example, it featured No.2 seeds Shintaro Mochizuki & Holger Vitus Nodskov Rune and No.4 seeds Matheus Pucinelli De Almeida & Thiago Agustin Tirante – that’s a lot more characters than Cori Gauff or Marin Cilic. But all in a lettering day’s work for the team in navy shorts.
It may be a manual job, but the traditional scoreboard operation moves with the times. Prior to 2018, results on the Order of Play board used to be posted according to the draw order – so if it was Elina Svitolina v Simona Halep, the score would have gone up as 1-6, 3-6. To mirror wimbledon.com's digital coverage, the team introduced a “d.” so that once a result comes in the names can we swapped around, if necessary, and passers-by can see at a glance who was the victor. So until June 2020 (the results remain in place until the Draw is made for the next Championships) their semi-final result will read Simona Halep d. Elina Svitolina 6-1, 6-3.
"Whilst we have fun, we are proud to be at the best tennis tournament in the world and are committed to making sure every score we put up is correct and tells the story of the tournament to visitors for the year to come."