By Andy Munro.
When Blues drew Nacional of Madeira, not many people realised that a Bluenose had already ventured before onto Portuguese footballing territory many years previously. It took me back to my one and only holiday on Portuguese soil, in a town called Alvor. As a hater of both high-rise hotels and golf, the holiday my family proposed on the Algarve hardly filled me with anticipation. It was, therefore, some time before I located a low rise resort which wasn’t going to be awash with pastel v necks and loud check trousers.
When we settled in at our apartment in Alvor, we used to go down to the beach on a fairly regular basis and, bizarrely, next to it was a beautifully kept football pitch with a small stand surrounded by security fencing. I made a few enquiries in Alvor itself and found out that it was home to Alvor Town who were playing in the Portuguese Third Division. Even more interestingly, I saw a poster on a lamppost advertising Alvor Town ‘Veteranos’ versus a neighbouring town.
In those days I was a sprightly mid-fortysomething and up for a game so every time we went down the beach I hung around the security fence trying to converse in Spanish to the groundsman. Unfortunately Portuguese is really nothing like Spanish and has a guttural sound more like Russian, albeit with a slight Mediterranean flair.
Despite the language barrier, I managed to corner the coach, one Jose Mourinho (I made that bit up!) as he arrived the day before to prepare and thankfully he spoke some Spanish and he told me slightly reluctantly to report the next day.
On the day I told the family that I was hoping to get a game and jogged my way down to the pitch hoping to loosen my hamstrings, although I did have to rush into a bar past a surprised bar owner to perform ablutions as the big match nerves got the better of me. On arrival the coach beckoned to me to follow him and he then proceeded to chuck a ball to my feet, presumably to see if I could trap something more than a bag of cement….if only Steve Bruce had done the same to Cameron Jerome before signing him, it would have saved us all a bit of anguish. Anyway I must have passed the test because he then beckoned me into the dressing room where I got changed. Incidentally we all left our gear in an unlocked dressing room without a ‘valuables’ bag in sight.
Anyway, I was slotted into defence facing a centre forward who looked more like Mick Harford than Cristiano Ronaldo and he pulled the sort of face that a baton-wielding Portuguese cop might do when licking his lips at the prospect of pulling in some drunken English fans. Luckily for me I managed to get in a couple of tasty English-style tackles early on and when the time was right cleared the ball out of defence with a dramatic (and completely unnecessary) diving header which drew more than a ripple of applause from the hundred or so spectators. Confidence sky-high I started to do my bit for multi-linguism by throwing in a few football phrases, albeit in Spanish, like ‘tiempo, tiempo,’,‘hombre sobre,’ ‘aqui’ and ‘vamos’. I don’t think they understood a word so now I know what Mourinho must have felt like when he first took over Chelski.
Unfortunately, the team we were playing were an open age side and as the game wore on their superior fitness began to tell as they cruised into a 4-1 lead. Luckily I had a Carling Cup moment up my sleeve as an incident in the opposition goalmouth occurred when their keeper and centre-half collided leaving me with an Obafemi Martins opportunity to net and ensure a more respectable scoreline. As I turned around to celebrate, I distinctly heard a chant from the crowd of ‘Ingles,Ingles’ but knew that with no English witnesses, nobody would believe my tale of footballing triumph on Portuguese soil…and I was right!
Here’s hoping Blues go one better.
