There was a glint in Fernando Argila's eye. "I've got a dangerous past," he grinned as he got up and left the living room, where a huge leather-bound album of photographs lay on the table, and walked steadily to the study.
Pictures hung on the walls, and there were books everywhere. Reading had become his passion. He stood before a black-and-white photo in a frame, slowly naming the men in it, one by one. The Barcelona team from sometime in 1942, or perhaps early 1943. "They're all dead now," he said. Only he was left. "I was the little one, the kid." Seventy years had passed; from the little kid to the most senior of Spanish football's veterans.
This week Argila passed away, aged 94. The son of a Catalan and an Italian who met in Cairo, he leaves eight children and 25 grandchildren, one of whom, Viran Morros, plays handball for Barcelona and for Spain. Four of them have been goalkeepers at lower levels, and his son Fernando coaches football in Italy, with San Marino Calcio. "It's been an interesting life," he said, on that clear, bright morning at his home, a small flat in Castelldefels not far from Barcelona.
Born in 1920 -- although his family changed that to 1922 to avoid him having to go to the front to fight during the Spanish Civil War that broke out in 1936 -- Argila didn't dream about being a footballer. His calling was basketball, which he had played for the Catalan champions, and later in life he would confess that it remained his favourite sport. But he spent 16 years as a footballer and another 18 as a manager, at Barcelona, Real Oviedo, Atletico Madrid, Granada, Racing Santander, Espanyol, Sporting Lisbon and Cordoba.
Argila joined Barcelona to play basketball, but ended playing football for them as a goalkeeper instead. He became an international, playing for Spain against Turkey in 1954, his only call-up. Many thought he should have had more. "People went [to the national team] who should not have done," he said.
Argila won the Copa del Generalisimo with Barcelona in 1942 and was the substitute when Barcelona met Real Madrid in 1943 -- the last surviving member of the squad from the infamous 11-1 defeat at Estadio Chamartin, the game some see as the beginning of the world's biggest rivalry. Before that there was no real rivalry, Argila believed; after it, there was. He believed that what happened that day, that result -- still Madrid's biggest ever against Barcelona -- could only be explained "politically," even as he described himself as "apolitical."
Argila watched from the bench, the substitute goalkeeper. He recalled the visit to the dressing room from a regime official, "a policeman, a lieutenant or an I-don't-know-what from the Civil Guard," but the memory that stuck with him more, lingering longer, was the noise: the thousands and thousands of tin whistles that Madrid's fans had been handed, the pressure, the sense of intimidation.
Lluis Miro let in 11 and didn't play again, opening a tobacconist's instead. Argila left for Real Oviedo, where he would play for 13 years, but for a one-year spell in the middle at Atletico Madrid. "Nanu," they called him there. Oviedo, he said, was his team. An Oviedo shield hung from his wall. He returned annually, right up to his nineties, "and they still stop me and say hello." Last year, for the first time, he could not go.
It was Paulino Alcantara -- "Romperredes" or "Netbuster," as he was known and as Argila referred to him -- who recommended his signing. Alcantara was Barcelona's all-time top scorer, until Leo Messi overtook him. Argila had also played with Cesar, the club's top scorer in competitive matches until Messi overtook him too. At Oviedo he played with Isidro Langara ("He hit the ball so hard he practically burst it"), with Anton ("He played in a beret because he was bald"), with Herrerita and Emilin. He played with Ben Barek, against Laszlo Kubala and coached Alfredo Di Stefano, even if his memory of that was hazy later in life.
Back in the living room, the album contained countless pictures, action shots given to him by photographer friends. Most were captioned, and there were press cuttings too. "I'd read the media and see if they said nice things about me." And if they didn't? "I'd think, 'That bloke's a bastard,'" he said with a laugh. Looking through the album you got a feel for how he played, a powerful figure who dominated his area. It is full of pictures of him, athletic and imposing, always catching, "unlike now." Looking at his hands, you got a feel for how he played too: he had huge hands, his thumbs bent back over time. He played with no gloves, unless it rained, and then he played in woollen ones.
He played in woollen jumpers, too. Argila was tall, dark and handsome. He had charisma; the word that best describes him is planta, good looks, presence. He giggled slightly when, prompted by his daughter, he told the story. There was a hint of mischief in his eyes as he explained how a kind of competition developed, a battle for his attention. Female fans gathered behind his goal and knitted him jumpers to play in. He accepted them gratefully. In Oviedo, it rained often and it was cold, too.
Not that knitwear was the only solution. "A slug of cognac at halftime sorted that out," Argila smiled. "They were different times."
Another photo is of the 1942 Copa del Generalisimo-winning team, all big smiles and big lapels. They pose next to the team bus. Journeys in butane buses seemed endless. Argila could not remember his first car, "but it was rubbish, for sure." He'd been on an amateur contract at Barcelona, after all, but at Oviedo he was a professional. The money was not a lot but it was "enough," he said. During contract negotiations with Oviedo one summer, he urged the club to get back to him with a response quickly, because he was about to head off into the Pyrenees to go trout fishing.
That story fits; it feels very much like him. Even well into his nineties he was lucid, mischievous and extremely good company. He was popular and has been remembered fondly, particularly at Barcelona, even though he no longer went to games, and in Oviedo, where one former player says "he was loved here." Just as he was at Granada, Racing, Cordoba, Espanyol and Atletico. A portrait of him hangs on the wall at the Spanish Federation's HQ in Las Rozas, and supporters have painted his face onto the concrete walls of Oviedo's Carlos Tartiere stadium.
On Thursday night, a minute's silence was held at the Camp Nou in honour of Fernando Argila. This weekend, other grounds across Spain will follow suit.