Twenty-five years ago "People's Sunday" was coined at the Wimbledon Championships, when fans queued for miles to get in to see a day's play made necessary by the inclement weather.

That year Stefan Edberg, champion three years earlier, had needed 73 hours to finish his first round match and – in the days before the retractable roof on Centre Court – the tournament was even further behind schedule than this year.

The party atmosphere generated in 1991 will never be forgotten. Attracted by cheap pricing, once they had finished queueing more than a mile along Church Road, the 25,000 or so people that got in were raucous to the extent that even in defeat Jimmy Connors was left to say: “That’s my sort of crowd.”

The calls at the time for "People’s Sunday" to become a regular feature were nearly as deafening as the fans, seen as an ideal way for Wimbledon to shake of its elitist image, but have gone unheeded despite the rain leading to repeats in 1997 and 2004.

On both of those occasions, Tim Henman won epic matches among the Mexican waves and general hysteria, but this year – somehow – the whole thing was more of a damp squib.

With the All England Lawn Tennis Club stressing it was "Middle Sunday", not "People’s Sunday", they attempted to dispense of the queues by taking the whole ticket-selling process online.

While it had cost just a tenner for those who had queued all night to watch Connors and co. on Centre Court a generation ago, the price for those who logged online at 3pm on Saturday was £70 plus the inevitable Ticketmaster booking fee.

Health and safety may have approved and organisers will point to the fact tickets disappeared in 27 minutes as justification – but it was a policy that took away entire essence of the occasion.

So while it was fitting that Sunday play this year marked a milestone of one of the most memorable days in its history it was also a reminder that, 25 years on, Wimbledon has not become any less stuffy.