GironaMore than fifty years ago, Girona, on a night in August 1970, inaugurated Montilivi. Among the white-and-red footballers was Joaquim Hernández López. Yes, the father of Xavi Hernández, the current coach of Barça, played for Girona. He only did it that season, in the Third Division. He was an up-and-coming midfielder, Hernández. “I had a lot of physical background because I’ve never smoked or drank,” al said Girona newspaper in 2009. Hernández made his career among modest clubs in Catalan football, including a spell at Barcelona and his debut in the First Division wearing the colors of Sabadell at just eighteen years old.
The Terrassa-Sabadell rivalry, how can you forget. Hernández had made his debut in Terrassa, of course. But he made his way to the eternal rival, tempted by the elite. “Voluntarily returning to Terrassa, a year later, was the biggest disappointment of my life. I wasn’t playing and the pressure of Primera got to me, I thought I would play more if I returned to Tercera, but I was very wrong. It was the ‘mistake of my life’, he would confess, decades later. That was the year 1965. Before landing in Montilivi, he passed through Condal and Melilla, where he was sent to do the mandatory military service. “Vic Buckingham dismissed me and Martín Vences, the coach of Girona, called me. He convinced me,” he explains. Tough guy, Vences.
“He was like a sergeant, or even more gallant. He made us go very stiff, he was something tremendous. He once let three colleagues go at Cassà’s big party, but at eleven o’clock he called them to tell them that they could go to sleep now, that it was enough. And this was also noticeable in training, it was very strict and some of the most veterans suffered. On Thursdays, for example, we played the games, which were real torture, the it took so long…”, recalls Pere Pla, Hernández’s colleague, in the book View Alegre 100 years of the first modern stadium in Girona.
“He arrived in Girona with a very professional perspective, and the people here were still not quite used to all that. In those days, his ideas were not good – confesses Jesús Morchón, the top scorer of that team -. I I told him, for example, that you couldn’t be a professional like a First Division player with a Third Division salary… At that time we were paid three or four thousand pesetas a month, which is what you could get, as a lot, going to work in a factory. But Vences was very demanding: every day we went to training we weighed ourselves and wrote it down on pieces of paper, and when we finished we had to go back. I still have some!”
“I was very glad to leave just to lose sight of him”
He put the cross on Hernández early on, despite having been the guarantor of his signing. “I accidentally injured myself, a crack in my ribs, and from that day, with the season quite advanced, I became maniacal – assessed Xavi’s father -. He had no humanity at all. He treated the staff very badly and the people were very upset. He showed no interest in me staying, but the truth is that I was mad to leave, because it was unbearable. I have been in many places and always in charge and I had never seen such a man. I was very happy of leaving just to lose sight of him. And, moreover, with pains and work he gave me permission to go see the family in Terrassa.”
Joaquim Hernández played in 18 League games and two in the Cup and scored a couple of goals, in a season in which Girona finished second in the standings, three points behind Mestalla. Hernandez was chosen twice Figure of the party within the Nicolazzi Trophy, which decided Girona’s most outstanding player in the League days. The Nicolazzi family, owners of the renowned Hotel Peninsular, Restaurant Rosaleda and Bar Savoy, witnessed the parties, meals and celebrations and the accommodation of the teams that came to town. “I have many good memories from the stage in Girona, however. Among my colleagues, we have turned the professional relationship from that time into a friendship. It is one of the most positive and enriching things I experienced. In fact, we still see each other every year. We keep in touch.”
The second place in the League sent Girona to promotion to Segona, but they fell defeated against Villarreal (1-2 and 2-0). That was also the season in which Girona were eliminated from the Cup after a penalty shootout that lasted eight days.
And what happened to Hernández? After Girona he played in Europa, Calella, Manresa, Hospitalet, Reus, Igualada and again Manresa, and would coach Sants, San Cristóbal, Igualada, Rubí, Sant Quirze, Tremp and Tàrrega. Now he follows his sons on the Barça bench, Xavi and Óscar, who are facing a Girona who are looking to defeat them for the first time and where their father, before they were born, was there for a season