I'll be calm on top - but welling up inside: Andy Murray's father Will on bringing up his boys alone and his nerves on momentous day



Will Murray will walk unnoticed through the massive crowd at Wimbledon to take his seat on Centre Court today.



Yet there will not be a prouder father in the land as his son, Andy, steps on court in front of an estimated national TV audience of 20 million to try to win the Wimbledon championship that has evaded every male British tennis player for 76 years.



Murray, 57, will be casually dressed as usual. While cameras will concentrate on his former wife Judy Murray, Andy’s coach Ivan Lendl, a former great champion, and his manager Simon Fuller, the creative inspiration behind the Spice Girls and David Beckham’s fortune, Murray will slide into the back row of the best seats in the house with minimal fuss. It is his preferred style.



Nervous: Andy Murray's father Will Murray, pictured standing by a picture of his sons Jamie and Andy will be shaking with nerves when he watches the latter in Wimbledon finals action today

‘I’ll be like a swan,’ says Murray. ‘I’ll appear calm on top, but underneath my legs will be going like the clappers. Emotion takes over when I see Andy walk out to play really big matches. I well up.’



On Friday after Andy had beaten Jo- Wilfried Tsonga to claim his place in the final, Murray could be found dabbing tears from his eyes as he left Centre Court. ‘I don’t think it can get any better than contesting a Wimbledon final if you are British,’ he says. ‘Frankly, I am lost for words. I am so proud.’

His older son Jamie, a doubles specialist, is already a Wimbledon champion, having won the Mixed Doubles title with Jelena Jankovic five summers ago. Will Murray smiles at childhood memories of his two sons, brought up by him for a handful of years in the family home in Dunblane, Scotland, after his marriage to Judy ended in divorce.



‘The urge to win was something Andy had from a very young age,’ he recalls. ‘I filmed the two boys when they played in Solihull in an under-12 tournament. It didn’t matter that he was playing his older brother, Andy didn’t just want to win, he wanted to crush Jamie. He was so little, the racket was as big as him.



Back in the day: Andy Murray aged 11 playing snooker on holiday - with dyed ginger hair!

‘Andy was always so competitive. We used to go to North Berwick on holiday and there always seemed to be a tournament on. He played against adults and beat them relatively easily. Once he was playing a much older boy, and it was usual to call your own lines. The big guy didn’t like being beaten by the little guy, so he started calling some balls out that were in and vice versa. Andy gradually got more and more furious. Then it all kicked off. The big lad was maybe six years older and a good foot taller. It was just an early indicator of Andy’s competitive will to win. He wouldn’t let anyone climb all over him. He isn’t afraid of any reputation – and he carried that with him into professional tennis.’



Will Murray is now in a long-standing relationship with Sam Watson, 46, an optician, who will be next to him at Centre Court this afternoon. But he spent years alone, so as not to further distress his sons, after his marriage to Judy failed. His story is a heartfelt one.



‘I had to tell them their mum was leaving home. It ripped me apart to have to hurt them by telling them what I did. They were distraught. They are very different personalities, but they both took the news in much the same way, and I remember they were very upset.’ Murray, 57, an area manager for Scottish newsagent chain RS McColl, added: ‘I worked full-time, but I cooked when they came home from school. I did the washing and ironing. I wouldn’t say I was a single parent, because Judy stayed in Dunblane and she was around. She still took them to tennis, but I was the one in the family home with the boys.’



Brotherly love: Andy Murray, left, aged two, with his elder brother and former Wimbledon mixed doubles winner Jamie, right

The past has been buried now. Jamie is married, and has a flat in Wimbledon where his father and Sam are staying. Andy lives with his girlfriend Kim Sears in a £5 million mansion, a 20-minute drive into Surrey from Wimbledon.



Murray Senior, a good-natured man, gets along with them all. Andy has paid for him to watch him play in the US Open and at the Australian Open. He can trust his father to always disappear into the shadows. Yet Will knows more than most just how hard his younger son has worked, and how much he has sacrificed to place himself on the threshold of history.



At 15, Andy left home to broaden his tennis education at a specialist academy in Barcelona. He knew no one and spoke no Spanish. ‘The night before Andy went, he was really looking forward to going,’ says his father. ‘He had seen the long line of his peer group who had gone down to England, including his brother, to do the LTA [Lawn Tennis Association] thing without great success. He said that was not for him, so he was prepared to go abroad.’



Andy’s 18-month stay in Spain at a cost of £40,000 was paid for with a contribution from the LTA, some sponsorship driven by Judy, and personal family sacrifices.



Support: Judy and Will Murray, pictured arriving on Wimbledon's Centre Court

‘People who come to watch Andy now see a star,’ says Murray. ‘But they don’t see the effort and sacrifice that he made to get to this stage. He has given up a lot, because he was so focused on what he wanted to do. Now when I walk behind him and hear fans shouting his name, or wanting an autograph, I remember when Andy was just like that.’



Murray flew to Israel when Andy played his first match for Great Britain – a Davis Cup doubles tie.



‘That was like going into the lion’s den,’ he says. ‘People booing and whistling at my son as if he was the enemy.



‘He was just 17. Seeing him in that environment that day I knew he would be all right. A lot of players freeze, or become intimidated in situations like that; but Andy never flinched.’

He has never accepted that tennis is a middle-class sport, the province of those with a privileged education and monied background.



‘I am classless, so are my sons,’ says Murray. ‘Tennis is not an elitist sport. To succeed you need a mindset to work hard, which is what two little guys from Dunblane have done. How many people in British tennis have done what Andy has done?’



And how will his son cope with the eyes of the nation, of the world, on him today? ‘Before matches, Andy always looks very calm,’ says Murray. ‘He seems relaxed, and that’s down in part to the people around him doing a good job.’



And this afternoon, when history beckons for Andy Murray, his father will do his best to convey an air of serenity. It will be a lie, of course; because his heart will have never beaten faster, and he will be fit to burst with pride.

HE'LL ARRIVE QUIETLY IN A TINY VW - AND COULD LEAVE AS THE MAN THE WHOLE WORLD WANTS TO KNOW

For the past 74 years, this nation has hosted a glorious party. Sadly, we have never stayed around to see the last guests depart. But shortly before two o’clock this afternoon, a tall, faintly frowning young man from Dunblane will walk on to the Centre Court. And a weary tradition will be laid to rest.



Andy Murray’s presence in the Wimbledon final has provoked a swirl of daring dreams. ‘What if. . .?’ has become our favoured phrase. What if Murray should go one step further and defeat Roger Federer in today’s final? What if the likes of Jessica Ennis, Rebecca Adlington and Mo Farah should deliver a golden treasury of Olympic medals? What if Luke Donald or Rory McIlroy should win The Open golf?



And what if, wonder of wonders, Bradley Wiggins should take the Tour de France? Historians tell us that the Coronation summer of 1953, when Gordon Richards won the Derby, Stanley Matthews took his FA Cup Final medal and England secured the Ashes, represented the high-water mark for British sport.



Fired-up: Andy Murray has shown more aggression at SW19 this year

Yet, this storm-buffeted, rain-drenched summer of 2012 may be about to set its own extraordinary standards. But first, there is Murray. Yesterday, he arrived at Wimbledon for a spot of gentle practice.



He was watched by a congregation of 60 photojournalists, a dozen camera crews and 25 ball-boys and ball-girls. And yet, for all the manic intensity of the scrutiny, we know precious little about the man. We know nothing of his politics, his views on Afghanistan, the deficit, the Union, the Monarchy.



At 25, he has surely formed opinions on these matters, yet he keeps his own counsel, and he is right to do so.



And so, in the absence of solid evidence, the sages impose their own ponderous stereotypes upon his elusive personality. He is, it seems, an ‘outsider’, motivated by his Scottishness, by his distance from Middle England, the spiritual dwelling of British tennis.



This apparently explains why Murray is rabidly determined to succeed, while dear old Tim Henman was placidly prepared to compromise.



Route to the final: How Murray and Federer got there

And Murray has grown up – overnight, it would seem. Yesterday he looked like the kid convinced that the world is conspiring against him. Today, he has entered the sunlit uplands of maturity. He answers questions without swearing, deflects compliments with a deprecating waft of the hand and pats the heads of children. Today, he is a paragon.



Now all this may well be true, but we don’t know, because Murray chooses not to let us know.

But the last Briton to win Wimbledon was quite different. Fred Perry was born in Stockport, the son of a cotton-spinner who became a Labour MP. An engaging extrovert who was champion in 1934, 1935 and 1936, Fred was as free with his opinions as he was with his affections.

Marlene Dietrich took her place among his array of conquests, a fact he would concede with a stage wink and a discreet leer. In 1984, in a series of interviews with me, Fred poured out a stream of robust reflections and lusty anecdotes. He had forgotten nothing, except two of his four marriages.



Murray’s personal life proceeds on rather more conventional lines. His girlfriend Kim Sears is beautiful, and doubtless devoted to Andy and their border terriers. But I doubt she has ever stood in her underwear in a smoke-filled cellar and sung Lili Marlene.



However, times have changed – changed utterly. Like every major sport, tennis has improved beyond measure. The players are faster, stronger, infinitely more athletic. Perry would have won no more than a handful of points against a man like Murray.



Federer, however, is a different matter. In his case, elegance, grace and impeccable courtesy conceal a ravenous appetite. His six Wimbledon titles were acquired with a noble demeanour allied to the instincts of a junkyard dog. He will enter today’s contest as the properly overwhelming favourite.



For his part, Murray knows he has much to overcome, including a whiff of resentment from those who once worshipped Henman.



But as this multi-millionaire drives his little Volkswagen down the A3 to Wimbledon this morning, he may reflect that Fred Perry was not unreservedly loved as he worked his wonders. When he won his first Wimbledon title, the aristocrats of the All-England Club did not celebrate his triumph.



As he lay in the bath, revelling in his victory, he heard footsteps outside. The Wimbledon champion was awarded membership of the Club. The symbol was a club tie of green and dark blue. He emerged from the bath, draped in a towel, and he spotted the tie. ‘They just strung it over my chair in the locker room,’ he said. ‘Nobody wanted to know me.’



If Andy Murray should prevail today, he will find a warmer welcome. The whole world will want to know him.

