'I know that Serena Williams doesn’t like him': Meet the people, dogs and harris hawk that really rule Wimbledon

A company’ muses Gilbert Huph, the vertically challenged insurance manager in Pixar’s The Incredibles, ‘is like an enormous clock. It only works if all the little cogs mesh together.’ His is a statement intended to satirise a culture of corporate naivety. He wants employees to turn a blind eye and bury their heads in the sand so long as they make a profit. Think too hard and they might not.

The same statement, however, can be made of the world’s greatest sports ground without a trace of irony. To see Wimbledon in action is to realise that a company — or, in this case, the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club (AELTC) — is a thing of beauty precisely because it is run like clockwork. What in The Incredibles’ fictional location of Metroville, California, sounds like an indictment of late-stage capitalism rings, in this patch of south-west London, as an ode to collective success. When one thinks of Wimbledon’s shining stars — the people who keep the cogs ticking besides the players themselves — one thinks of the umpires; the ball girls and ball boys; the camera operators; perhaps the wait staff. The ticketing officer may sometimes get a nod, as might the stewards shepherding punters from Southfields station to the grounds.

Behind such public faces, however, is an ecosystem without which the perfection attained by the tournament’s front-of-house staff for close to 150 years could never be reached.

Wimbledon is often lauded for embodying the best of Britain. It is a bucolic marvel, with 50,000 plants spread across 42 acres. It rewards sportsmanship and casts such a spell over the crowd that punters behave almost as gracefully as the players themselves. It is a paean to our past (the UK, after all, invented lawn tennis — and still today all participants must wear white) as well as our future, consecrating our nation as a breeding ground for talent. It is at Wimbledon, where grass courts mean the neon balls travel faster than on any other surface, that people come to watch the greatest games in the world. Matches here are more often discussed in dramaturgical terms than in the traditional language of sport.

Centre Court, the jewel in AELTC’s crown, was said by John McPhee to resemble ‘an Elizabethan theatre’ in a 1968 New Yorker article on ‘The Lawns of Wimbledon’. The tournament’s most renowned finals — between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in 2008, and Federer and Novak Djokovic in 2019 — were more adrenaline-inducing than top action films of the 1990s. This is the stage that gave rise to Björn Borg and Pete Sampras, as well as today’s equally captivating rivalry between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.

Yet, as all good directors know, a film or play is only ever as good as the sum of its parts. The minutiae, in other words, are as important as the big picture. Without the crew, no one can bring the cast to life; and this crew (its youngest member new to Wimbledon, its eldest a veteran of the grounds) embodies the very qualities — devotion, dignity and perfectionism — that punters come here to celebrate.

The timekeeper — Dan Bloxham

When a player emerges from the locker room and walks onto Centre Court, he is accompanied by a man wearing beige trousers and a white shirt with a tie and AELTC’s signature navy blazer. On his feet are white tennis shoes: the same as those once worn by line judges. Known familiarly as the player escort — and officially as the master of ceremonies — Dan Bloxham has been here for more than 25 years.

His role, on the face of it, looks easy. Yet anyone who’s ever been a personal assistant to the great and good will know that getting them where they need to be on time is no mean feat.

‘Thirty years ago, players weren’t too worried about getting ready,’ Dan says. Today, it’s a different game. ‘Everyone’s in the gym, throwing balls, running, doing exercises right up until it’s time to get onto the court. I have to kick the players out of the warm-up areas, one from one side and one from the other, and there’s always the risk that, when you’re accompanying one player, by the time you return, the other’s not there.’

This comedy of (unforced) errors speaks volumes of the ever-growing quality of tennis at Wimbledon. ‘Nowadays, the quality at the end of a five-hour match is just as good as it is at the beginning,’ Dan notes. This is because players will only compete if they are at their fittest. To many a fan’s chagrin, Alcaraz has pulled out of this year’s tournament due to tenosynovitis. ‘You can’t have so much as a chink in your armour anymore,’ the master of ceremonies states.

Dan assumed his current position about a decade into his Wimbledon years, in 2008. He remembers his first day, accompanying an already seasoned Federer onto the court. It was a stressful first assignment, he says, although he now seems to do this with eyes closed. His predecessor, Steve Adams, had given him only one tip: to ‘take control’. ‘My job is to try to make the players feel special,’ Dan explains, ‘and realise that they’re playing on the greatest court in the world.

‘They are part of a club here,’ he continues, ‘not only a facility. I might introduce them to members and key staff on the morning of their match as they walk down to see the court. It’s an entirely different way of getting there than it is at any other event.’ He is also the club’s head coach (‘when I’m not in my uniform, I’ll make sure I wear my sports kit, so the players know I have a clue’) and jokes about being able to tell a competitor’s nationality by their choice of warm-up (‘Italians tend to run at each other’). Federer, he says, would make his rivals nervous by doing the opposite. ‘He didn’t run around — not at first, although he eventually started doing yoga, throwing the balls around, even some football drills.’

Learning to navigate these differences and approach players when in the throes of preparing for a life-changing match is, Dan says, the most difficult part of his job. Yet it’s one to which he’s risen with aplomb. As well as being a timekeeper, he is also Wimbledon’s chief diplomat. ‘There have been moments where a player’s kit looked great, but they put a tracksuit top on right before walking out onto the court — and it’s not white,’ he laughs. ‘You’ve got their agent saying it’s white… but you know it’s not.’

One aspect of the job he no longer has to worry about is bringing the trophy onto the court. ‘I had to do that for the 2008 final,’ he tells me. ‘First of all, it’s an incredibly heavy trophy — you’re constantly thinking: don’t drop it — and you always end up holding it for a lot longer than you think because the players take five minutes to go into the crowd and come back around.’ As in the parts of his job for which he’s still in charge, patience is key.

The guardian — Christopher Boucher

It’s not only players who need minding — or their time managed. SW19’s more than half a million attendees also need directions, so they know where to be and when. The order of play is sacred and cannot be interrupted: fans are only allowed out of their seats, for instance, during a change of ends or set break.

Enter the stewards, whose military uniforms — often handsomely gilded — dot the grounds with flashes of black, red and gold. It is they who ensure the athletes are fully immersed in a game by keeping crowd disturbance to a minimum. They also look after the crowd itself: the tournament being held in July means it can sometimes get very hot and people can be taken ill. It reached 35.7˚C last summer, Christopher Boucher, the head steward, informs me. ‘It’s our job to attend to them and call first aid if anyone passes out.’

The stewards serve as human compasses for the punters, steering them in the right direction, whether they need food, water, medical assistance, a loo break, directions to their seats or help with spillage. With their uniforms, however, are they not the ones most at risk of overheating? ‘We wear only a short-sleeved white shirt and black trousers inside Centre Court,’ Lt Cdr Boucher reveals, ‘which keeps things a little cooler.’

The stewards — about 25% of whom are now women — number 500 in total. This year, there were 1,400 applicants. They hail from military backgrounds — Lt Cdr Boucher, a serving member of the Royal Navy, shows me the medals with which he has been presented for service in the Gulf and Bosnian wars, together with his Jubilee, Coronation and Long Service and Good Conduct Medals — meaning that some are forced to drop out of Wimbledon at the last minute because they’ve been deployed somewhere on duty. A reserve list makes up the shortfall.

Their job begins on the Sunday before the Championships, with a safety briefing and assignment to a specific team. After that, they get quizzed every day so that they remain up to scratch (‘by day four or five, they’re all over it’) and all take two weeks of annual leave in order to volunteer. A team of 50 mans the Royal Box, greeting each visitor and circulating throughout the day with water.

The year 2021 was particularly challenging because covid was lurking and any steward testing positive meant their gangway of four volunteers had to be replaced with those in the wings. The extra logistical planning, Lt Cdr Boucher notes, was immense. ‘We had about 100 people on standby at once — and can you imagine having to wear a mask in this heat?’

The chronicler — Emma Traherne

No.1 Court was never meant to be made of grass. The 1922 architectural plans conceived it as a hard court before the idea was scrapped. When the new No.1 opened in 1997, it did so as a sunken court for which soil had to be removed and harvested, eventually giving rise to what we now know as Henman Hill.

We know this because Emma Traherne and her team of 12 keep the architectural plans intact — together with the rest of the archive. Emma has been the curator of the Wimbledon Museum for seven years, having previously looked after the historic furniture and decorative arts in the Houses of Parliament. ‘We have more than one million historic assets in SW19,’ she reveals, ‘many of them photographs, as well as 60,000 physical objects, such as clothing, rackets and paintings.’

Among the artefacts in the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum archive, there are some that date back to the sport’s earlier iterations (even before the invention of lawn tennis). On display is a first edition of the first book to mention ‘tennis’, written by Antonio Sciano in 1555, in which the game being discussed is an ancestor of real tennis.

The museum has about 1,000 materials on show at any one time, as well as a dedicated exhibition space that changes every 12 months. Currently on display is ‘A Slice of History: Food & Drink at Wimbledon’, which explores the role of food at the tournament for both players and fans. Alongside strawberries and cream, an entire segment is dedicated to the evolution of player nutrition. Pickle juice, Emma explains, is the modern player’s drink of choice during matches, as it allows salts to return to the body at speed — a far cry from Suzanne Lenglen’s penchant for sipping brandy between games in the 1920s.

Roughly 120,000 people a year visit the museum, which documents the tournament’s evolution, as well as its relentless pursuit of excellence. Some 30% visit in the first two weeks of July; yet Emma observes her job is a marathon, not a sprint. ‘We do a huge amount of work in the four weeks before the Championship and install about 35 displays across the site,’ she explains, ‘which we take down once they wrap mid July. It’s not before early August that we are able to take a break.’

Perhaps the most important part of Emma’s role is the annual trophy engraving. No fewer than 84 trophies and salvers are worked on by five engravers over finals weekend. Emma says the spell-check process is ‘extremely thorough’. Have there ever been mistakes? ‘Not in my time.’

In the event of something going wrong, the situation is salvageable. The magic of Wimbledon, Emma says, is its efficiency. ‘It’s a very short turnaround,’ she explains. ‘As the victors are handed the full-size trophy by The Princess of Wales on Centre Court, the engravers are hard at work behind the scenes, engraving names onto the three-quarter-size replica of the trophy which the winners get to take home.’ Even one mistake, she says, could add half an hour to what should be a 20-minute job. The full-size trophy — the one viewers can see — is returned to the Club post-presentation and is on permanent display at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum.

If AELTC has anything resembling the Firm’s Operation London Bridge — a contingency plan in case, despite rigorous spellchecks, an error is made during the engraving — all decline to say what this is; although one imagines that Wimbledon’s quest for perfectionism would naturally involve some Plan Bs.

The wingmen — Donna Davis and Rufus

More than any other tournament, Wimbledon strives for perfection. Part of its appeal is how spotless the place is: there is no litter or gum on the floor and, perhaps more importantly, there are no rats or pigeons. This is all thanks to Rufus, the 18-year-old hawk who has been guarding the grounds at SW19 since 2008 — far outclassing his predecessor Hamish’s nine-year tenure.

His handler, Donna Davis, tells me he learnt to fly here at 16 weeks old. ‘We were very lucky,’ Donna says. ‘Hawks can exhibit very different personality traits from one bird to another and Rufus was always great around people.’ His day will begin with a quick turn around the court on Donna’s arm, to do a recce and check what birds are around. Some species, she tells me, should not be disrupted. The grounds are home to little pied wagtails, ‘who are naturally curious and chatter away, yelling at Rufus on the roof’. He has been taught largely to ignore them. When they get truly pesky, he flares his wings at them and they instantly dissipate.

Rufus, who travels from Northamptonshire for the Championships, is only freed from Donna’s jesses when too many birds congregate in one spot (typically, a roof or a balcony). When it’s time for him to come back, she tempts him home using lightly cooked strips of his favourite food: quail. ‘If he doesn’t get it from me,’ Donna reveals, ‘he’s off to the Debenture lounge.’ As Rufus is a Harris hawk, his form and plumage are adaptable to the sometimes harsh conditions of his native America. A bit of rain, therefore, is not a problem, although he is a ‘sun worshipper,’ Donna admits. As for the wind, he can use it to his advantage. Heavy downpours, however, are a problem. ‘He doesn’t like that.’

Rufus hasn’t yet fraternised that much with players. ‘We need to start making some moves in that direction,’ Donna says. ‘I know that Serena Williams doesn’t like him…’ How does one build up trust with a hawk? ‘It comes with time and spending every day together,’ Donna explains. ‘Historically, you had priests train hawks for kings and bishops and get them used to human voices by reading them scriptures. Rufus is used to the sound of my voice, which I don’t think is quite so soothing, but really, it’s about food motivation. He knows he doesn’t need to exert himself too much to have his favourite meal if he’s near me.’

The botanist — Robin Murphy

There are more plants and flowers across AELTC — currently expanding to include a fourth site at Wimbledon Park — than there are in Regent’s Park’s Queen Mary’s Gardens. ‘Our main ethos,’ explains lead gardener Robin Murphy, ‘is to create tennis in an English garden.’ It is a huge part of what makes the Championships so special and lends Wimbledon the heritage quality sought after by punters.

‘Everything we plant is a nod to the English-garden style,’ Robin says. ‘Of course, we have to evolve and change things every year — we follow the principle of “always the same, like never before” — so we replicate a feeling, rather than an actual design.’

There are more than 2,200 trees across the grounds and an additional 1,000 trees and shrubs in stock to be reused in July. To these are added 32,000 perennial summer flowers — ‘to create the tournament overlay,’ Robin explains — and 15,000 petunias that hang on the buildings’ façades. Recent years have favoured pollinator-friendly planting. ‘Nurturing biodiversity is a big part of what we do,’ the lead gardener says. ‘We aren’t afraid to trial new plant species and to roll their number up if they prove successful.’ Still, they try to keep things native wherever possible. Foxgloves, for example, are conspicuously popular.

There are 13 full-time gardeners on the main site, Robin tells me, although they are supplemented in the weeks leading up to (and during) the Championships by seasonal gardeners, as well as more on the parkland across the road and at the satellite location in nearby Raynes Park, SW20. Many of them return each year and have become ‘as integral as the full-time staff,’ he notes.

Robin has been involved in the Championships since 2004, but became employed directly by AELTC in 2014. In 2016, he interviewed for his current position. ‘I stumbled into horticulture, really,’ he says. ‘I trained as a carpenter when I left school, but needed some summer work. My dad, who was a gardener, had a company that had a small contract on site and I came to help out that year. There used to be a lot more contractors dealing with different parts of the site, but it’s been streamlined since then.’ One can ‘absolutely tell the difference,’ he says, since the work was taken in house. There is a sense of cohesion unmatched anywhere else.

‘The weather always presents its challenges,’ Robin notes. ‘Too much heat requires more water, whereas too little sun might slow down flowering. I think the biggest difficulty is the fact that there are so many groups working on top of one another’ — competing cogs, as it were — ‘which makes scheduling work quite an ordeal when you experience delays caused in other areas.’ Much as the stewards attend to guests on court, the gardeners must often help those on Henman Hill.

‘Our most common call-out is when people have dropped their phone or sunglasses in the water feature we’ve installed at the top of the hill,’ he laughs, ‘so they can be fished out.’ Not all heroes wear Nike.

The bouncers — Ben Edwards and Boris, Faye Benson and Moo

It wouldn’t be Wimbledon without dogs. Keeping their noses out and alert to the slightest fracas, SW19’s anointed sniffers travel from far and wide to ensure that everything runs smoothly. That way, spectators and players alike can keep their heads down and enjoy the tennis. Boris, a Russian terrier, has been serving as a general-purpose patrol dog for five years.

‘We walk around the grounds and keep an eye out for anyone trying to gain access or exhibiting anti-social behaviour,’ his handler, Ben Edwards, explains. ‘It rarely, if ever, happens. Boris is big enough to act as a deterrent. We prevent these things from happening before they do, which makes our life easier.’ Boris and Ben travel to the site from their farm in Kent. ‘He’s got quite a deep voice,’ his handler smiles. ‘It’s amazing: any problem and he tends to nip it in the bud.’

For Moo, a 2½-year-old black labrador, Wimbledon is a brave new world. This is hers and handler Faye Benson’s first time at the Championships (the two previously worked at Royal Ascot). ‘She’s quite lively when she’s working,’ Faye tells me, ‘and quite calm when she’s not working. Perfect.’ Unlike Boris, Moo is more highly specialised and looks out for explosives. ‘We are lucky enough never to have found any in real life — only during training,’ Faye says.

Once a month, Moo goes through a refresher course to make sure she is up to speed. ‘We’re also undergoing some extra training here right before the Championships start,’ her handler mentions.

The juggler — Andrew Chevalier

The ball girls and boys are among the Championships’ most recognisable figures. The balls they run to fetch, however, are not distributed at random. There are three kinds of balls pre-sent in any one game,’ says Andrew Chevalier, ball-distribution manager: threes, fives and sevens. These figures are based on the number of games in which each ball has been used.

Andrew is in charge of a team of eight whose job it is to get each ball where it needs to be — both during practice and the Championships themselves. ‘There isn’t enough space to store all the balls used in a match on the court,’ he explains, ‘so these are constantly being replenished.’ Each match begins with 21 cans on the court. Ball girls and ball boys will always have two cans on the go, which translates to six balls. Every nine games, these are replaced as the umpire asks for new balls. A men’s game typically uses 16 cans (or 48 balls) and a women’s game 10 (or 30).

‘Many people don’t realise what happens when a ball accidentally lands among the crowd,’ he says, citing this as one of his principal challenges. ‘We leave a secret tin under the chair of each umpire — one which, according to tracking, has been used for three, five or seven games.’ This is because the quality of the ball needs to match that which has been shot into the crowd. The umpire then drops the relevant ball into the game.

In the background, Andrew grades the balls he collects after the umpire requests a change. At this stage, he assesses how many games they can still be used in; or whether they should be tossed, by looking at the Slazenger logo on the ball and seeing how battered it looks. ‘Rain delays, during which the umpire will sometimes suspend play, pose a particular challenge,’ Andrew notes. When play eventually resumes and players are asked to warm up again, the rule dictates that they must do so using ‘fives’ (they cannot use new balls, which are saved for when the actual match recommences — and the majority of balls collected during suspension have been used up to nine times already, making the more desirable fives hard to find).

‘We need to sift through thousands of previous days’ balls to find these fives,’ Andrew explains. If all 18 courts at AELTC are affected by a suspension (and six ‘fives’ are needed on each one for the reprisal), that means finding 108 such balls. Sometimes, the same court will face multiple suspensions of play within a single day.

Still, Andrew maintains the kind of stoicism that appears synonymous with Wimbledon. ‘If I’m doing my job correctly, no one should notice I am doing it at all.’ He has worked here since 2018 and as ball-distribution manager from 2021. ‘I step into the Wimbledon world for a month every year,’ he says, ‘and forget that anything else exists.’ In his day-to-day life, he freelances as an actor and writer.

As McPhee did in The New Yorker in 1968, he draws an analogy between Wimbledon and the theatre. ‘It’s a load of departments coming together to put on a world-class production,’ he explains. His job is to keep plates spinning ‘and keep my team happily engaged in what they are doing. It’s important for everyone to appreciate how special it is to work here.

‘What I’ve learnt over the past eight years of working here is that the managers of all the different departments are some of the most dedicated people in the country,’ Andrew beams. ‘It’s 14 days of work, non-stop. Every single office and every single member of staff is exhausted by the end of it, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

This feature originally appeared in the July 1, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.