A talk takes place around a monkfish with baked potatoes that outlines a portrait of what Spanish sport was like six decades ago. The protagonists are three of the four national Olympic medalists who remain alive from older Games: José Antonio Dinarés (Terrassa, 84 years old; his son Jan was silver in Atlanta 96), Juan Ángel Calzado (Barcelona, 87; president of the federation international between 1996 and 2001) and Pere Amat (Terrassa, 83; 17 Games in his family) won bronze in field hockey in Rome 60. They usually meet up for lunch three or four times a year and EL PAÍS shared their last meeting with them, in Terrassa. The fourth is Carlos del Coso (Madrid, 91 years old), who can no longer make long trips and whom his former teammates visited when he turned 90. All of them, along with the other 14 deceased members of that team, achieved the only metal of Spain between Melbourne 56, Rome 60, Tokyo 64 and Mexico 68. The details and anecdotes of those days come out accidentally in the heat of a table.
Dinares. Before the semi-finals against Pakistan (0-1), we were all sitting down and the national Sports delegate came. “These golf things are going very well,” he said.
Footwear. He was a military man… And what do you answer? Hey, and when we arrived in Rome, they put us on the bus to go to the Villa and one of the Spanish Committee told us not to worry about the food, that there was self service 24 hours a day, we didn’t need to take anything up to the room. Because those who were already there had devastated.
Amat. They were the first Games with an all-day open buffet. All the boxers were overweight.
Dinares. A cyclist came with four plates of chicken. He ate them all. ‘Can you handle this?’, we asked him. ‘Yes, yes,’ he replied. The next day, at the first bend, he left. It was understandable, because at that time there were many difficulties in Spain. Many lived as they could. There were people who had not eaten many things in their lives. We comply with what they told us.
In the Villa, between men and women there was a separation fence
Juan Ángel Calzado
Footwear. This was 20 years after the war. He had gone hungry. There were athletes who chose to eat rather than compete.
Dinares. We discovered packaged ice cream. In Spain, there was only the court.
Amat. They were also the first Games with the Olympic Village. Before, people went to hotels.
Footwear. Men here and women there. In that year, there was no possibility (laughs). We had a separation fence (Spain sent 133 men and 11 women in 16 sports).
Amat. We watched the other sports on TV, we didn’t go anywhere. The Villa was very far away. That was the year of the boxer Cassius Clay. In the other Games, we did go out.
Dinares. The rivals didn’t believe we were winning. “They will lose,” they said. But we didn’t lose. In the Munich pre-Olympic, the teams were certain of victory against us. We weren’t favorites or anything. Spain only had 5,000 chips.
Amat. Since then, he has not missed any Games, although lately we have been fairer.
Dinares. Because of our bronze in Rome, they changed the competition system. In Tokyo 64, they made two groups of eight and two passed. In Rome, there were four groups of four and two also passed by. First we tied against Great Britain (0-0; the bronze was won by the British: 2-1), and we beat Switzerland (5-1) and Belgium (3-1). In the quarterfinals, we beat New Zealand (1-0). And in the semifinals we lost to Pakistan.
Footwear. There we had a penalty stroke, but Eduardo Dualde, the specialist, was out protesting. If he shoots it, it would possibly have tied. In any case, they achieved nothing with the system change. In Tokyo, we were also the first European team. We are fourth.
Dinares. But we can explain that… In that match in Tokyo for the bronze against Australia, with seconds left, we won 2-1. And they gave me a penalty, which anyway… I touched the ball and the player, almost on the halfway line. They tied us and in extra time we lost 3-2.
Footwear. Curiously, that referee stopped whistling.
Our hockey was more technical than today
José Antonio Dinarés
Dinares. Our hockey was completely different from today, more technical. The physical issue has changed everything. In the past, India and Pakistan always won because they were technically superior.
Amat. Before, whoever stopped the ball had a chance. Now, whoever doesn’t stop it can’t play.
Dinares. We competed in fields that were muddy. In Tokyo 64 they were perfect. Halfway through, 30 or 40 women and men came out with scissors to fix the potholes.
Footwear. Like all sports, hockey has transformed. Because of the grass, the rules… In our time, there were no changes either. Now, after 10 minutes they get tired and take them off, whether they are doing it right or wrong.
Dinares. I remember that one of them had his cheekbone caved in in the first part. When we looked at him, his face looked nothing alike. But the game ended.
Footwear. They told him not to even think about going out and he replied no, he couldn’t leave the team with 10. He took over as a striker and we won 1-0. Raining cats and dogs.
Dinares. We had done the training on the beach in Castelldefels. I was exhausted, I haven’t been back since Rome. Run, come back, run, come back…
Amat. We also did three-on-three training matches with a guy on top. The preparation was a story.
Footwear. We went up to Tibidabo with a 20 kilo bag.
Dinares. Twenty kilos at seven in the morning seemed like 30 because of the humidity. The coach was Ernesto Willig, a German with a Spanish mentality.
We had training matches with a guy on top of us. The preparation was a story
Pere Amat
Amat. But in the deal he was German… We should talk about Pablo Negre, who was key.
Dinares. He took care of everything we needed. He was like a patron. The president was one from Madrid, Saiz de los Terreros, but the one who was in training and took care of what was missing was him.
Amat. He made a hockey field on his farm for us to train. And since they only gave the medal to the 11 of us who played for the bronze, she ordered replicas from a jewelry store for the other seven. And she also made 18 badges with each person’s name printed on the back.
Dinares. That team was born from the Catalan federation, of which Negre was president. Before Rome, in 1959, we had already gone with the Catalan team to see Pope John XXIII. We give you a stick. We played in Italy and Egypt. 80% of that Spanish team were Catalans. I studied Industrial Engineering.
A year before, we went with the Catalan team to play in Italy and Egypt
José Antonio Dinarés
Footwear. Hockey was not enough to live on. Our parents told us to play, but studies came first.
Dinares. My last game in the national team, in Mexico 68, is in the Guinness. There were six extensions. It was for fifth and sixth place, against Holland. Without making changes or drinking. Then we found out that if the seventh ended with 0-0, they would ex aequo. They scored us a penalty. I was dehydrated, they gave me water with salt, I fell asleep and at eight they woke me up and told me: “We are going to Acapulco.”
Footwear. I left hockey when, at 55, a little kid said to me: “Where do you want me to hang out, Mr. Calzado?
Carlos del Coso moves with panache through the living room of his Madrid home despite being 91 years old, opens a closet and takes out a folder full of clippings and photos. “Look at this one,” he says, pointing to a German newspaper from 1961. “It says where they call me ‘The Panther of Rome,’” says the former goalkeeper proudly, the oldest survivor of that team that paved the way in field hockey and scored a great Olympic success for a Spanish sport that did not have much to boast about at the time, but curiously, upon its return to the country, it only received local tributes. The Franco regime, contrary to what was expected, did not pay them a big tribute. “Nobody counted on us in those Games, we were nobody, and from then on Spanish hockey became a European power,” he highlights.
A few years ago, the team traveled to play some games in India, one of the classic hockey powers, and they ended up coming across a photo of Del Coso in his glory days. An image that the internationals brought with them and that he now shows off in a corner of his house. “Do you see how I’m dressed? He was not wearing a helmet or breastplate. Only the guards (protections) on the legs. He drew a lot of attention that he did not wear gloves. The goalkeepers of my time wore them. Not on my right hand and on my left I put a leather one. “I wanted to have sensitivity with the stick,” he explains. Like his three other teammates, with whom he maintains contact, he keeps every detail of his playing years fresh.
They didn’t take me to Munich 72, with 39 chestnuts, and I retired. I didn’t want to drag down my prestige and have a mindundi score a goal against me.
Carlos del Coso, the panther of Rome
“Before Rome 60, there were still doubts with me. The thing was between another and me. But they had the good sense to put me on. There was so much difference… The other one had the rich dad plug. I had the poor dad, but he stopped. There was even a meeting of directors to see who was playing, and they chose me,” he claims before taking out a clipping from the folder. Brand, from 1971, in which he states that in the 1960 and 1964 Games (Tokyo) he was recognized as “the best goalkeeper in the world.” “My best performance was against New Zealand, in the quarterfinals in Rome (1-0),” he details.
“It stopped everything”
He started out as Del Coso and, as soon as he became big under the sticks, he became known as Charly. “I became a goalkeeper by chance. One had left at the end of the race and someone said: ‘why don’t you propose it to Del Coso?’. He was brave and agile. They threw some balls at me… and I stopped everything. They called me up for the University Games, we won gold and then I started to be Charly,” recalls this man who also served as a coach and who worked for many years at the Santa María de los Rosales school in Madrid. “He was from wealthy people, even from the nobility,” he warns.
In Rome 60, Tokyo 64 —he also remembers “the bronze stolen by the referee’s unfair penalty”— and Mexico 68 he was the only one who played every minute. “At the 72nd Munich Games, he was preselected with 39 chestnuts, and in the end they didn’t call me. I was very upset and left. I didn’t want to drag down my prestige and have a mindundi score me a goal,” confesses Charly, who, like his successful colleagues, also sees a lot of difference between his hockey and the current one. “The thing is that artificial grass is another sport, it has nothing to do with natural grass. Now it’s more physical and then it was more technical. A shame,” closes Carlos del Coso, one of the four Spanish medalists who remain alive from older Games.
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