Robyn's Davis Cup 2000 Final Experience
by Robyn Lakeman
Well I arrived back this morning at 6.30am. In the whole time I was in Barcelona I never had a chance to go on the internet, too busy, but I know you were kept up to date by some of the others. The whole time I was there I felt exhausted and tired and had a lot of problems with my feet and legs so I wasn’t my usual self and felt quite overwhelmed by everyone at times so I apologise if some of you found me a bit vague or strange. I also came down with the dreaded DC virus two days before I flew out of Barcelona so don’t feel that great at the moment.
It was lovely to catch up with all my friends again and also to meet new ones. I really cherish the times we all had together.
I was so touched by the book that Joes presented to me from you all. I had no idea at all so you all kept the secret very well. I started to read some of it at the dinner but it brought tears to my eyes so I put it away to read later :) Thank you so much, it is something I will treasure always.
I haven’t read the board in 10 days so don’t know what was posted about our seats in the stadium but I just wanted to say that I had heard that a number of people were very unhappy with were we where placed. I know I was very upset too at first and felt it was a bit of a slap in the face to us Rafterbabblers but I soon realised after talking to Woz that he felt embarrassed about how things worked out too. Woz had given me a map of the stadium and on the map it looked like we were next to him but a bit higher up, definitely not up in the bleachers. We both agreed that it was certainly different to what we both expected.
Originally when Woz was eking out the tickets he told me that 15 of us could sit with his group and the rest of the Babblers could sit elsewhere. I decided that it wasn’t fair for me to pick just 15 of us out of 69 so I decided we should all be together. I still think I made the right decision there. When Di told me that there were empty seats down the front I decided to try to sit down there as much as I could as I hadn’t realised we would be so far away. On the Friday and the Sunday I played musical chairs and would sit in people’s seats until they came back and then would move on. That way, I got to be pretty close to the action. I had told the Babblers that it was an option and quite a few took that up but still it was great to see the majority stay up in the stands as a group and wave those banners.
We all had a great but tiring time. I was so proud of the sportsmanship shown by the Aussies compared to the Spanish. It was quite numbing when Juan Carlos Ferrero won his match against Lleyton. We all knew how much Pat wanted to have his name on the Davis Cup and there were a lot of us that shed a tear for our Pat. He looked so sad when he came into the stadium for the presentation. Fate definitely works in strange ways.
When I spoke to Pat at the players party he told me well done on getting all the Rafterbabblers together for this Davis Cup final and he also asked how Luke was!! This is just so typical of our Pat, thinking of others even after having his dream shattered. I’m sure his heart was broken earlier but by the time he arrived at the party he was ready to have a good time and appeared happy and smiling.
There will be tons and tons of pictures from so many of us for sure and as the days go by they will be put up. I want to thank all the volunteers for the great job they did. It was a huge effort and I really appreciated all the help, I could never have done it by myself and even with all the delegating I still found everything exhausting as I mentioned before.
Bee had a fantastic time, the boys all looked after her and made her feel very special. At the end of the party we couldn’t get a wheelchair taxi or bus at 5am in the morning so Woody and Muddy and a few fanatics escorted Bee, Astrid, Wendy and myself back to our hotel. It was a half hour walk and quite an experience believe me.
We caught the same flight as the DC team from Barcelona to London. Bee was up in business class with all the boys. Pat was running around with his video camera, maybe he has footage of Bee on it. Bee messaged me from London this morning, she was staying on for a week there but her wheelchair was broken on the flight to London so she said she may have to come back to Australia now, what rotten luck for her. The whole Barcelona trip was such a wonderful experience for her.
I presented Woody with the banner that Peta made up and he just loved it. He wore it around his neck for a while and then gave it to his best friend to wear until they got back to the hotel. He said thank you. I also gave Woz the banner which became quite famous YOU SINK THE ARMADA, WE’LL SINK THE BEERS. He thought that was pretty cool. Thanksmate has probably told you how she had problems when she held up the sPAIN KILLERS banner.
I finally met Lara too and found her quite nice. I think someone mentioned that Kim had what looked like an engagement ring on her finger! She was so lovely to Bee.Robyn
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