Little could have prepared Gabriela Sabatini and Andrea Strnadova for their role of opening Centre Court act on Middle Sunday at the 1991 Championships.

One of the wettest first weeks in the tournament's history - just 52 out of approximately 240 matches were completed by Thursday evening - prompted the decision to stage play on the traditional day off to help get the tournament back on schedule.

Sabatini and Strnadova emerged from their dressing room into the arena for their third-round noon showdown. They were greeted by a packed stadium, a seemingly unending roar and enough Mexican waves to fill an ocean.

The carnival atmosphere for a first, early-round match on the world's most famous tennis court was very different to the norm. Sabatini and Strnadova might have expected polite applause, the buzz of muted conversation in a stadium half full with those who had foresaken luncheon, an umpire banging his microphone while climbing into his chair and John Barrett getting himself comfy in his BBC TV commentary box.

Argentinian Sabatini blushed at the reception, her head lowered and her eyes wide in coy, bemused reaction. Czech Strndova smiled broadly. Second seed seed Sabatini claimed the match on her way to the final but they both claimed the hearts of the 11,000 joyous spectators.

Centre Court was rammed to the gills. The spectators had raced from the gates for prime, unreserved seats. Once there, they were not for moving for fear of losing them. They had formed part of a queue snaking almost two miles that produced an attendance of 24,894.

John Parsons, the tennis correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, said: "It was amazing how many people were there considering the decision was only taken on the Friday evening to play on the Sunday. It was the spontaneity of the whole thing. I remember the rush, particularly for the front row seats of the first tier of Centre Court Court. I'm sure if I hadn't have guarded the press seats, they'd have gone as well."

It was more a football crowd, with the chanting and singing, but there was no chance of the sunny good humour suffering the dark, malevolent mood swing often associated with the British national game.

At £10 a head for Centre Court and No.1 Courts tickets and £5 for ground passes, one and all got more than their money's worth.

No.1 Court gave a boisterous reception to Mary Joe Ferndanez and Pam Shriver in the all-American opener. A finalist 12 months earlier, Zina Garrison, another American, en route to the quarter-finals, and Swede Maria Strandlund provided the prelude to the main event, John McEnroe, a legend in his penultimate Wimbledon. McEnroe, a three-times champion, did not disappoint his adoring fans with a victory against Frenchman Jean-Philippe Fleurian.

A competitive , good natured doubles, in which Anders Jarryd (Sweden) and John Fitzgerald (Australia) beat Wally Masur and fellow Australian Jason Stoltenberg rounded things off.

With the exit of Ms Sabatini and Strnadova , victories for eventual Swedish semi-finalist Stefan Edberg over Christo Van Rensburg (South Africa) and Arantxa-Sanchez-Vicario over Lori McNeil (USA), warmed up the effervescent crowd on the main court for the top of the bill: Jimmy Connors.

Spectators cheered the American's every hit in his warm-up with Derrick Rostagno. To stand there as the roaring reached a crescendo was to feel one's eardrums about to burst. Connors, ever the showman, was loving it , smiling broadly and acknowledging the support.

There was no talk of whether the crowd was knowledgable, polite, sportsmanlike; it was of the electricity generated by the £10-a-headers that fizzed around arguably the greatest arena in sport. Connors, eventually, got upstaged by his fellow American, but the atmosphere overtook the results that day.

It was, as chief executive Chris Gorringe said, an unrepeatable experience. You really had to be there.

Michael Stich won his first and only Wimbledon singles title that year, while Steffi Graf claimed the third of seven. There was also the record-breaking mixed doubles of 77 games which ended with Dutch pair Michiel Schapers and Brenda Schultz defeated compatriot Tom Nijssen and Hungarian Andrea Temesvari.

But the overriding memory of that year's Championships was People's Day.

Just ask Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Gabriela Sabatini who were the stars of Wimbledon 1991 and they would point to the 24,894 spectators who had engulfed the grounds that day.