Tragedy turns to triumph for Andy Murray

A SURVIVOR of a school massacre and once Britain's least favourite athlete is finally redeemed by his Wimbledon win.

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AN eight-year-old Andy Murray hid under a table when Thomas Hamilton marched into Dunblane Primary School armed with four guns on a spring day in 1996.

Hamilton killed 16 children and one teacher before turning the loaded weapon on himself. Murray knew Hamilton as his scout master. The mass murderer had even ridden in the back seat of the family car.

In those horrifying moments, the town of Dunblane, previously known best for its historical connection to the firebrand Scottish independence warrior William Wallace, became synonymous with a modern-day tragedy and the site of a grim memorial to the slain at the local cemetery, forever displaying the scars of Britain's worst child massacre.

As of 5.11pm on a cloudless Sunday in London, the small cathedral town off Scotland's A9 motorway could start basking in the splendour of the wee scrawny kid who dodged a coward's bullets and became Britain's first male Wimbledon champion in 77 years.

Murray defeated Serbia's world ranked No 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic in a straight sets victory (6-4, 7-5, 6-4). The tussle was more climactic than the result might suggest - with thunderbolt forehands from both players and a nail-biting finish. It was also a remarkable personal triumph after years of trying for Murray.

The last Brit to win Wimbledon was Fred Perry in 1936 - 15 prime ministers and three monarchs ago. Perry also wore long trousers, making Murray the first British man to win at the All England Club in shorts and score the £1.6 million ($2.6m) prize money.

With his childhood memories clouded, Murray began researching the bloodshed at Dunblane only three years ago, and was so affected by the details that he refused to speak about it in public.

Privately and belatedly, he grieved. At Wimbledon last year, the Scot unveiled a new ritual after match wins: he stared to the heavens and pointed one or both index fingers, quite often with tears in his eyes. Asked for reasons, Murray repeatedly declined. It was believed he had a terminally ill friend. Incorrect. It was suggested a member of his support crew had a sick child. Wrong. All along, Murray was saluting the victims of Dunblane.

In a BBC One documentary aired on the eve of Wimbledon, sitting on his sofa with his dog in his lap, Murray wept when asked about the lost lives. "You have no idea how tough something like that is," he said. "It's just nice being able to do something the town is proud of."

His mother, Judy, recalled her breathless dash along Doune Road to the two-storey Dunblane Primary after Hamilton, a 43-year-old unemployed former shopkeeper, had opened fire on a class of five- and six-year-olds in the school's gymnasium. Murray was walking to the gym when the gunshots began; Judy Murray had given Hamilton lifts from the train station when he needed a ride.

"Andy's class was stopped when somebody went up, when they heard the noise and discovered what had happened," Judy Murray said. "I was one of hundreds of mums that were queuing up at the school gates waiting to find out what had happened, not knowing if your children were alive or not."

Murray has returned to Dunblane Primary to speak to the students and display his tennis gold medal from last year's Olympics. But he has never set foot in the gym. "I actually don't go near that part of the building," he said on the eve of Wimbledon. "When I go up to school now, if I'm doing something, I'll do it in the playground or I do it in the new gym."

After more than a decade of never mentioning it to Judy, Murray began peppering his mother for details about the Dunblane shooting in 2010. How could anybody do it? When did they have Hamilton in their car? Why did they have Hamilton in their car?

Murray's brother, Jamie, a Wimbledon mixed doubles champion who was also a student at Dunblane Primary, says: "It's nice that, after all the negative publicity the town got after what happened so many years ago, that it's able to be shown in a positive light now. I guess that's a testament to the success that Andy's had."

Success has come to Murray only after a hard-fought battle and many disappointments. He still has regrets about his early separation from home when he left high school in Dunblane for Barcelona to focus on his tennis, study at the city's Schiller International School and train at the Sanchez-Casal Academy with Emilio Sanchez.

He endured the the pain of his parents' separation and later the public humiliation and personal frustration of losing four straight grand slam finals. Speculation ran rife that he was too volatile to win prestigious titles. 

Previously, Murray was the most despised athlete in Britain, gaining approval only when he cried like a big man-baby after losing to Roger Federer last year at the All England Club. The English had dismissed him as a surly Scottish git from the moment he declared the winner of the 2006 football World Cup in Germany would (with any luck) be "anyone who England are playing".

Tabloid newspapers roasted him. At the French Open last year, England's 1977 Wimbledon champion, Virginia Wade, labelled Murray "a drama queen". The consensus was: too right! Players in the locker room regarded Murray as a hypochondriac, constantly feigning serious injury in matches to baulk opponents. When he hobbled through a match against Finland's Jarkko Nieminen at Roland Garros, Rafael Nadal was among the players to laugh at the television coverage. What many did not know was another complication for the fiery Scot: he had been diagnosed at 16 with a bipartite patella, where the kneecap is two separate bones instead of being fused together during childhood. The result caused Murray considerable pain at times, so it was not surprising that he was often seen clutching his knees.

Murray had long since given up on widespread acceptance. The fallout from the World Cup remark still haunted him. He received death threats at Wimbledon in the troubled years. So did his mother. "I opened my locker at Wimbledon and I was getting stuff sent to me that said, 'I hope you lose every match for the rest of your life'," he said. "People within the grounds of Wimbledon were saying stuff to me, too. I felt I hadn't done anything wrong.

"After the World Cup thing, I started to understand a bit better how everything worked. I spoke with people about how to deal with it - you need to try to be yourself, but if people don't like you, it's not your problem. Hopefully things will turn around. You need to make sure you stay true to yourself and the people around you."

The people around Murray at Wimbledon included Ivan Lendl, a tennis legend and great curmudgeon. Australia's Pat Cash once had to be physically restrained from throwing punches at him at a tournament.

Murray approached Lendl to be his coach at the end of 2011, before he had won a major title of any description, let alone the treasure of Wimbledon. Lendl agreed to a meeting in a Chinese restaurant off a deserted highway in Florida. When they put their chopsticks down, Murray had a new coach.

Lendl was the dominant player of his era, the long-term world No 1 who won the French, Australian and US Open without grabbing the one he hungered for the most: Wimbledon. Beaten by Cash in the Wimbledon final of 1987, Lendl sat stony-faced while the Australian started the tradition of climbing into the All England Club's grandstand to embrace supporters.

The first major triumph of the Murray-Lendl team-up came at the US Open. Murray defeated Novak Djokovic in five wild sets on a Monday evening in New York last year. The emotion on that occasion went through the roof.

Murray had won the tournament 79 years to the day since Perry had succeeded in the city that rarely sleeps. Judy Murray sobbed. Two of Scotland's more famous figures, Sir Sean Connery and Sir Alex Ferguson, had travelled to Flushing Meadows, hugging Murray within an inch of his life in the corridor between the court and locker room.

Murray nearly vomited while trying to serve out the match and he shed tears, too, when victory was secured. Lendl, however, while living vicariously through his protege, was emotionless.

Deep inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, Lendl calmly walked up to Murray, like Clint Eastwood in the movie Gran Torino, looked him in the eye and said: "I am proud of you. Well done". Nothing more or less. Asked why he was disconnected from the weeping emotion of everyone else in Murray's camp, Lendl replied: "No tears from me. That is for the women."

The US Open was a significant notch in their belts, but Wimbledon was the one they wanted. Until then, both men would be dissatisfied. Murray's reaction in New York - understated, almost placid - conjured memories of Australia's Pat Rafter winning the same tournament and saying: "I'm still the same sack of crap I was yesterday."

Only Wimbledon could provide the supreme satisfaction. On Wimbledon's centre court at the weekend, Murray sat alone on the close-cut grass, closed his eyes and dreamed of lifting the most prestigious trophy in the sport. Lendl was front row for Murray's final against Djokovic. They slugged it out for three hours and nine minutes on the turf that had given Lendl nothing but grief. Finally, it was a serve, a forehand, and Britain's 77-year drought at the All England Club was over.

Murray did a Cash by climbing into the bleachers; the first person he hugged was Lendl, hiding behind sunglasses. Lendl's quivering lips gave it away: he was crying.

The Dunblane Hotel was packed to the hilt. Flower of Scotland filled the air. At the Dunblane Centre, a volunteer told reporters: "We have felt something here today that we have never felt before. It is incredible. Every time there is so much hope, but this was the most special moment of all. His family still lives here. He may have moved away but he is here regularly. He has never moved out in that sense and he will never abandon Dunblane." 

Murray embraced his mother in the stands. He did the rounds of everyone else in his players box before turning on his heels. She ran to him and held him for an extended moment. Not for the first time in the past 17 years, Judy Murray was glad to see her son.