When followers of Wolverhampton Wanderers talk about squeezing onto a terrace it’s usually in relation to fitting 30,000 gents on the South Bank, or losing their friend after a goal in the Holte End (I did lose a friend that way – Jimmy Sidney – but I’m happy to say he turned up again some twenty years later in the Tower End of Bloomfield Road). Well, let me tell you, I’ve been packed into Pop Sides, shoehorned into Sheds, cramped on Kops and pressed into paddocks, but there was never anything before or since the Estádio do Calhabé.
The problem in Coimbra, though, wasn’t a question of numbers – Wolves had demolished Académica 3-0 in the home leg, and the locals were consequently unenthusiastic about the competition – but rather one of scale. Decades of the insular Estado Nova regime and a century and a half without an international conflict had left Portugal rather isolated in history, and this was evident in its population. Outside of the major ports of Lisbon and Porto, the average height of a Lusitanian was just fifty-nine centimetres. By way of comparison, Derek Dougan was six foot three.
The height difference had served Wolves to great advantage at Molineux, where in real terms the Portuguese had had to run three times more than the home side, and a not-especially-well-directed John McAlle header proved well out of the reach of goalkeeper Conceição Melo for the first goal. The visitors had also had trouble dealing with the size five football, reminding me of the Subbuteo table football game that was popular with children and some supposed grown-ups at the time.
Walking from the station (fortunately the rail system used the Iberian gauge, and the rolling stock was consequently of a comfortable scale), we felt like South Staffs Godzillas, actually taller than many of the houses.
This being September in Portugal, we could avoid problems of scale by drinking our beers in the street, but fitting inside the ground was always going to be a problem. Eventually we arranged with some English-speaking turnstile attendants a way in using a large opening at one end of the ground. Most of the ground was uncovered, fortunately, but as more and more Wolves fans arrived, it became increasingly difficult to maintain balance on the concrete benches. Perimeter fences barely reached the shins, and so the front rows were continually toppling over, and for the only time in my life I felt thankful for an athletic track around a football pitch, as it meant that this did not interrupt the game.
The game itself threw some very interesting variables Mr McGarry’s way. With no away goals to their name, Académica were going to need to score at least four times, and there was little chance of that with Lofty Parkes filling out the tiny goal. But the small ball was going to be a problem to control and strike cleanly. However, from the moment the players squeezed out of the dressing rooms and onto the pitch, it was clear that they were well-prepared. At set pieces, the players would go on all fours in order to head dangerous crosses away, while up front, Dougan played barefoot, and was shooting with the top of his big toe in order to get more consistent contact. Waggy’s control was such that he just got on with it, and had an imperious game.
When Manuel Antonio opened the scoring, shooting through the legs of the goalkeeper, I wondered whether McGarry’s adjustments had been enough, but the Doog soon equalized with a rocket off his left toe (provoking the asphyxiating but exhillerating crush that I always remember, now, when trapped by a lift door or trying on medieval armour), and with Lofty now kneeling in order to close the gaps between his ankles, the tie was effectively over.
After celebrating Dougan’s eventual hat-trick, we headed out for some diminutive Superbocks before getting the train back to Porto, where the Ingenian and self-styled “Night Pirate” Jimmy Leicester awaited us on board a clipper ship which he had borrowed from his employers, the National Maritime Museum, and we sailed back to Greenwich singing a shanty which hadn’t been heard since we took to the North Sea for the Austria Wein game in 1960:
