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Remebering the luck of the Irish in the 1964 Euros

By on November 13, 2015

They tell a story of Jose Villalonga, whose name was lost to the history books in the forty-four years of the Spanish national team’s trophy drought, before Spain’s first major international final in 1964. Spain hosted four teams from around Europe — the USSR, Hungary, and Denmark — in just the second edition of the Euros. The Spanish had beaten Hungary in the semi-finals and hosted the USSR at the Santiago Bernabeu for the final on June 21. Before the match, Villalonga was outlining his tactical approach to his squad on the ground. He marked the pitch with his finger and used pine cones to represent the USSR players. His squad, however, he represented with stones on the rationale that these were stronger and of more valor. His side won 2-1 that day.

“My main memory is of the atmosphere because the Bernabéu was full. And at the time the capacity was much greater than it is now. They didn’t put seating in until the [1982] World Cup. It was full. What’s more, we had suffered a lot during the semi-final against Hungary so the fans were in the right frame of mind to get behind us right from the start. That gave us a great sense of security and helped us to stay calm,” said Luis Suarez, former Spanish footballing legend.These were the days when football was an honorable sport, men still wore their long button-down shirts and three-quarter length pants to go kick around the old pig skin — which literally was a pig’s skin in 1964. There were no substitutions, either. How it must have hurt to kick and save a water-logged ball, without gloves, mind you, on the Irish isles at that time, which was perhaps the last in which both Ireland and Northern Ireland were formidable football forces in Europe. With Ireland edging closer to qualifying for Euro 2016 with a draw in Bosnia-Herzegovina, they can clearly see the first European Championships since 1964 in which both Northern Ireland and Ireland have qualified for the last sixteen through the thick Bosnian fog. So it’s a good time to remember their rivalry with the Spanish and hectic campaign back in 1964.
The European football scene in the 1964 European Championships was heavily influenced by political tensions in Eastern Europe. West Germany were the notable omission from the tournament and Greece and Albania withdrew from among the twenty-nine teams that entered after drawing each other in the Preliminary Round.
From the home islands, Wales, England, Ireland and Northern Ireland all entered the competition, but England were knocked out by France and Wales lost to Hungary in the opening round. Matches were played in two leg ties, one home and away, over the course of 1962 and 1963. Ireland drew Iceland and won 4-2 at home in the first leg. Noel Cantwell, former West Ham United and Manchester United player, scored a second-half brace that day on one of the few occasions he played up front (he was typically known as “one of the best full-backs of his generation,” according to The Guardian’s records). “Noel Cantwell was a cultured footballer, an eloquent, deep-thinking charmer,” wax The Independent in his obituary from 2005. A 1-1 draw in the opposite fixture was enough to put Ireland through to the Eighth-Finals, or Round of 16.

Northern Ireland visited Poland in the Preliminary Round and came away with a comfortable 2-0 win. Derek Dougan, Northern Ireland’s flamboyant rising star and Wolverhampton Wanderers legend, scored the third of his eight international goals in his cult legacy. He would later go on to pick up a record suspension for swearing at a linesman, hand in a transfer request on the morning of an FA Cup final and shave his fair to “feel fresh.” This free-scoring Northern Ireland side bagged another two in the home leg to win 4-0 on aggregate.
In the Round of 16, Ireland faced Austria. They scraped a scoreless draw from the away leg and packed Dalymount Park in Dublin in the second leg on October 13, 1963. In a back-and-forth match, Cantwell scored another brace, which included a dramatic winner in the eighty-ninth minute.

Northern Ireland, however, drew eventual champions Spain. In the first leg, they visited the Spanish side in Blbao, a match that Dougan didn’t feature in. Northern Ireland drew 1-1, thanks to a late equalizer and welcomed Spain back to Windsor Park, which was filled with a purported 45,900 people on October 30th, 1963. Spain’s captain, Francisco Gento, downed the home nations island with the only goal of the match.

By chance, Spain drew Ireland in the Quarter-finals, still the farthest the Irish have ever gone in the competition. They were blown out of the water 5-1 in the first leg, and Spain had mercy in a 2-0 win in Ireland. Yet the Irish would exact their revenge the following year, defeating Spain in World Cup qualifying the next year. In the 60s, the Spanish met Ireland and Northern Ireland a total of ten times and won six times. Fifty years later, the international footballing hierarchy is still very similar but so drastically different at the same time.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.