The Last Car Into Lisbon
· May 26, 2017

The Last Car Into Lisbon

A few days before the big final I got a phone call from my pal Gerry Loney. He was going to Lisbon in a car with three other guys. There was a space. Did I want to go? Of course I wanted to go like almost every other Celtic supporter. But there were practical problems.

Would I get leave at such short notice? I didn’t have a passport, but in those days you could get a Visitors Passport at the labour exchange (honest, I kid you not) which lasted a year. It was issued over the counter. I knew someone, a Tim, who worked at the Parkhead ‘buroo.’ I phoned him and he offered to stay on late that day if I got there with my photo, which I duly did from a booth.

My boss was a Rangers supporter, but he let me have the leave and wished me well. After all Rangers were in the final of the Cup Winners cup and the so-called great Glasgow double was on the cards.

That night, feverish with excitement I phoned Gerry. There was one nagging doubt however. We weren’t leaving until the Monday evening. I expressed my concern. Three days to get to Lisbon from Glasgow? No problem, he reassured me; there would be plenty of time. Surprisingly, I never asked why we couldn’t leave at the weekend, but I wasn’t organising the trip, so I let it pass.

Monday came. I left work with colleagues’ good wishes ringing in my ears, although with a suspicion that a few of them didn’t really mean it. Along with a host of well wishers we met in ‘The Admiral’ in Waterloo Street.

I was introduced to my fellow travellers, whom apart from Gerry, I had never met before. They were Laurence Donnelly, John Hughes and Jim McDaid. We had only two drivers, and I wasn’t one of them. A couple of my friends raised doubts, about our timetable and relying on two drivers for what was not much short of a 4,000 mile round trip. It was going to be a hard slog for them, they surmised.

We set off around six o’clock. I felt like we were competing in the Monte Carlo Rally as everyone poured into the street to wave us off.

The car was an Austin Cambridge, from the British Leyland stable, not known for the last word in reliability. It was a big car, probably the equivalent of today’s Mondeo. Both sides of the car had ‘CELTIC’ spelled in large letters with green sticky tape. We also had a banner with two poles which stretched the width of the car. Two of us held it tightly through the back window as we sped off. It was to make many appearances throughout the journey. Unfortunately, time has erased the memory of what was on it.

As an aside, unbelievably none of us had brought a camera and there was never a pictorial record of our epic trek. It is also perhaps worth a note (gasp) that neither were there mobile phones nor GPS in 1967.

Three of us fitted in the back seat OK, but with hardly an ocean of space between us. We had no plans to stop for overnight accommodation. In fact the schedule meant that we would have to drive much of the three nights before reaching Lisbon. It was comfortable enough as we headed along London Road and past Celtic Park with a loud toot of the horn, but being in the back seat trying to sleep for three consecutive nights was going to be a challenge.

We were heading for Southampton and a morning ferry to Cherbourg. Four hundred odd miles in thirteen or so hours looked perfectly manageable and we settled down for a long night.

We broke down near Lockerbie!

End of a dream we thought. We had no leeway with regards to time and if the fault couldn’t be fixed soon we were snookered. The thought of not getting to the game was bad enough; worse was the vision of sneaking home only hours after leaving.

Fortunately, we had AA 5 star insurance. A roadside phone was found and a local garage was summoned, although it took them over an hour to arrive. I can’t remember now what the actual fault was. I just recall the engine cutting out. To our great delight it was a simple electrical fault, a loose connection somewhere, I think.

We were off again 90 minutes or so after stopping. We drove all night with only a couple of brief breaks, and the three in the back began to realise how uncomfortable the experience was going to be. The front passenger seat was reserved for the driver not at the wheel, to stretch out and try to get some kip. The rest of us were too excited to sleep.

We reached the ferry terminal with minutes to spare, the ship’s crew astounded we had left it so late. There was only one other party heading for Lisbon. It was two couples, two Celtic and two Rangers supporters. After Lisbon they were driving up to Nuremberg for the Rangers final. After we disembarked we never saw them again and did not know if they made it.

A four hour or so crossing gave us the chance to lie down and catch up on sleep, and then off at Cherbourg and on the road again, the excitement heightened by being in France. At Cherbourg the banner came out again. We drove through the city streets getting many puzzled looks, but some waves and thumbs up from several people who knew where we were going.

We drove down the Cotentin peninsula. I don’t remember much about that day, as I probably slept through most of it. We did stop at a cliff top near Granville and had a game of football, getting the odd toot from a passing vehicle. Later, we realised, that was precious time wasted.

Come night-time and the drivers declared that they had to sleep. They were knackered. We were near Nantes and drove into the centre (remember Celtic put Nantes out in an earlier round) and parked at the station.

Us non-drivers vacated the car to give the other two space to sleep and went into the station buffet. The opportunity for a few beers was enticing and we settled down for a few hours. The waitress was an attractive young lady called Ghislaine, and I tried to converse with her in my schoolboy French.

The bar had only another few customers and after they ascertained who we were and where we were going they went back to their drinks. My two companions, after a couple of beers, started nodding off, taking advantage of the long seats.

I fell in love with Ghislaine straight away as we started up a faltering conversation, her English being less than my French, but we got on like a house on fire. She was fascinated by our journey and I waxed lyrical about Celtic, although she had never heard of them and didn’t know they had played in Nantes. Nowadays the bar would have been full of Tims before and after the game, but in the sixties few fans travelled away on European nights. That, of course changed in May 1967!

Ghislaine tried to coax my Celtic scarf from me, but I wasn’t parting with it. I wanted it to be in Lisbon with me. However, I promised to come in on the way home, give it to her, and probably ask her to marry me. The buffet closed at 2AM. Ghislaine, to my delight, flung her arms round me, slapped a kiss on my cheek and bid us bon voyage. Even more in love, I returned to the car with the others. Several times during the journey I was told emphatically to shut up about my new love.

The drivers were asleep and we were loath to waken them. Fuelled by drink we drifted off to sleep. I was first awake at just after 7 o’clock. After finding a discreet spot to get rid of the beer, I wakened everybody. We had planned to leave Nantes much earlier, and a sense of disquiet crept over us. By our calculation we still had about a thousand miles to go; in about 33 hours. On paper it looked easy – an average of just over 30 miles an hour. But we had to stop to eat, have toilet breaks and it would be impossible to drive non-stop for that amount of time. The drivers felt refreshed, however, after their sleep and we vowed to press on, come what may. By 7.30 we were on the road again.

It was going well as the miles flew past. But it was too good to last. Suddenly a roar came from the back of the car. On inspection it looked as though the exhaust had parted from the silencer. We drove on a bit to test it, but we knew we couldn’t drive to Lisbon with that amount of noise coming from the car. Once more it looked as though our trip was doomed.

There was a handbook in the car which listed British Leyland dealerships. Incredibly, there was one in La Rochelle, not too far way; not on our route, but not far off it. But did they have an exhaust in stock?

We headed into the city stopping frequently to get half-understood directions. Finally we reached the dealer. They had the right exhaust, it was fitted promptly and we were on our way again with Gallic good wishes ringing in our ears, probably mixed with incredulity at our venture.

The diversion to La Rochelle, finding the correct address, having the exhaust fitted and getting on the correct route again had cost us about two hours. But we were still hopeful as we headed south towards Bordeaux.

The traffic was heavy, but soon we were beyond Bordeaux, heading towards Biarritz and the Spanish border. We allowed ourselves an hour break to eat and freshen up a bit.


This was before Spain joined the then Common Market and there were full passport controls at the border. It was early evening (Wednesday) and a long queue on the French side. The banner appeared again, and with the tape at the side we were a bit of a spectacle as fingers were pointed and smiles and thumbs-up given. It looked like another hold-up to cross the border, but suddenly a Guardia Civil officer appeared at the car. With an incredulous ‘ustedes son muy tardes’ he waved us out of the queue and walked beside us up to the top where we were waved through with a quick passport check, big smiles and cries of ‘buen viaje.’ We assumed that many more Tims had preceded us.


We had about 700 miles to go and less than 24 hours in which to do it. The game started at 5PM, so we didn’t have the luxury of a 7.45 kick-off to aid us.

At around eight o’clock we stopped in a small town between San Sebastian and Burgos and entered a bar for food and drink and life-inducing coffee for the drivers.

We had a pow-wow. We had driven around 500 miles since Nantes. The drivers were becoming exhausted again, and even with sharing the driving neither of them had slept during the day. We talked, we argued. Do we call it a day? Will we just stay in Spain and watch the game on TV, book into a hotel and get some proper rest, and, almost as importantly, a shower? We had stripped to the waist in a cafe toilet in France for a wash and changed our shirts, but we felt far from clean. To my shame I was coming round to thinking of giving up.

Incidentally, that night Spain were playing England in a friendly and the bar was full. There was a priest there and I spoke to him as the only one with any Spanish and told him of our predicament. I can’t remember his exact reply, but it amounted to ‘go for it.’ My friend Gerry was adamant that he would not countenance giving up after all we had been through and we decided to press on.


The priest gave us and the car a blessing (it needed one), and most of the bar customers piled out into the street to wave us off as we piled back into the car, our minds made up. We drove all night, passing Burgos, Valladolid and Salamanca. I had a special interest in Valladolid as my father’s cousin, Monsignor Philip Flanagan had been the rector of the Scots seminar there, but of course we had no time to stop and sightsee. The non drivers talked all the time, telling jokes and ghost stories to keep the current driver awake as the other one tried to sleep. It was a beautiful night, the roads were empty and at one point we came across a Spanish army column marching in formation. We stopped, and so did they. We cried ‘Celtic, Celtic’ at the top of our voices and waved our flags. They in turn waved their rifles in the air and hollered back.


We reached the Portuguese border beyond Ciudad Rodrigo and another potential disaster. Portugal was still a dictatorship and the border closed overnight. There was a small queue of vehicles waiting to cross. Then came pure farce. A couple of the Portuguese guards came up, looked in the car, and nodded ‘Celtic, Lisboa.’ I tried in Spanish to explain that we might miss the match. They nodded and stroked their chins. One of them smiled and did a little dance with his hands in the air. We finally got it. In the car were the two poles for the banner. We laid them cross-wise on the ground and four of us did the highland fling to the great delight of the guards and the onlookers. I still have an overhead camera shot in my head, looking down on this madness at a border crossing at dawn. After much cheering and clapping they raised the barrier and let us through. I don’t know if they took pity on the others, although it didn’t occupy my thoughts much.


We raced on, fearful that we would miss the 5 o’clock kick-off. I remember the snaking drive through the mountains, women selling oranges at the side of the road, and a tragedy that we came across at one point in the late morning. There was a Hillman Imp, with its big end or something else knackered. We stopped and spoke to the poor fellow in it. He had broken down the previous evening. He had been with three mates and they had all got lifts and deserted him. They had promised to phone his recovery company in the UK to get him rescued and he was still waiting for someone to arrive. We commiserated but had to leave him. I’d love to know how he fared.


Finally, we reached the outskirts of Lisbon and met up with buses full of Tims coming from the airport. We felt like pioneers as they hung out the windows (yes they could do that) and waved and yelled at us. We had made it! But there was still a twist in the tail that many will find hard to believe.


As I said earlier, I had never met three of my fellow passengers before. They were nice guys. Two of them had trained for the priesthood, but had left and were still devout Catholics. That day was a holy day of obligation, either the Ascension or Corpus Christi, and they felt we should at least try to get to mass. With the rest of us astounded, not to say raging, we traipsed around for about an hour that could have been spent soaking up the atmosphere at the stadium, looking for churches, but never found one with an ongoing mass. Finally, threats of real violence persuaded them to head for the stadium.


The rest, they say, is history. More eloquent writers than me have eulogised about that afternoon in the sun.

Particular flashes of that day come back often – the sheer joy at winning, the guy in the green Glasgow Corporation transport uniform which a Portuguese next to us thought was him dressing for the game instead of finishing his shift and heading for the airport; the police car racing past us after the game with its siren on and the driver wearing a Celtic scarf; the sheer mayhem after the game; the wild dancing up and down; and, oh aye, the two goals.


We ended up in a packed square in Lisbon that night in sheer celebration, and I’m sure mingled with fans who said ‘bugger, I’m staying’ instead of catching their flight home, and I believe the queue at the British embassy the next morning testified to that. Regretfully, we left Lisbon before dawn and started on the hard slog back home. To appease our two devout friends we went to Fatima later that morning to visit the shrine to the Virgin Mary. It didn’t take us much off our route. It was then Friday morning in southern Portugal and we were booked on the ferry at Cherbourg for Sunday afternoon, so the driving would still be a hard slog.

We had been on our own on the outward journey, but were part of a cavalcade on the way back. Every bar, cafe and restaurant we stopped at was full of supporters. We were waved at in every town and village we passed through in Portugal, Spain and France. I remember having a pee in a restaurant in Spain and someone I knew came in. We stood chatting for a minute and then parted as though we’d been in a pub in Glasgow.

As on the way down, we drove all night with short breaks Early on Saturday afternoon we reached Biarritz. We were filthy and unkempt as we gazed out on the town’s wonderful beaches. Not hesitating, we ran on to the beach stripped to our underpants and ran into the warmish sea. The feeling was sublime. We relaxed and dried off before setting off again.

Just south of Bordeaux, in the early evening, the drivers had had enough. They had brought a two-man tent, which they hadn’t had the opportunity to use. Erecting it at the side of the road, they got sleeping bags and retired, stating their intention to set an alarm for 2AM.

Setting off again I had a sudden realisation. We would be reaching Nantes at around 5AM. The station bar would be closed and I would not be having my tryst with Ghislaine. There was no point in asking the boys to wait there until it opened. Back home I put my scarf in an envelope, addressed it to ‘Ghislaine, Bar de la Gare, Nantes,’ accompanied by a letter in execrable French. I asked her to write and was already planning a return trip to France, but I never heard from her. Ah, well!


There was a big contingent of Tims on the ferry. A party was started and I think we drank the ship dry. Someone had a replica of the cup. He held it aloft and we did a conga round the decks to the delight of other passengers, who were mainly English and joined in the celebrations, gratefully accepting slugs from the bottles of duty free which were passed around.

We drove north for a while until we had to stop at a services to let the drivers sleep. Many people came up to us and congratulated us. Before we left the next morning, Monday, a driver in a car pulled up. He told us he had been on our ferry and joined in the fun. Disembarking, he realised he had drank and had to book into a hotel.

Our reception driving through England was also great, as people waved to us on the motorways and congratulated us at the services.

At last, seven days later and seven nights sleeping in a car, tired and extremely grotty we arrived back in Glasgow to joyous greetings from some citizens and a different kind of greeting from others who seemed to be giving us a V for victory sign.

POSTSCRIPT

On January 3rd 1999, after seeing Celtic draw 2-2 at Ibrox (an honest mistake from referee McCluskey denying The Hoops a penalty; plus ca change) I set off on another European adventure. My wife and I had taken early retirement and we decided to have a couple of winter months in Benalmadena in Spain. My wife refused to fly and I decided I would drive. As I planned the trip I realised that I could replicate a big chunk of the 1967 experience

We drove all night, got the same ferry crossing from Southampton to Cherbourg and drove down through France. The difference this time was that we had a night in a hotel near Nantes (no I didn’t pay a pilgrimage to the station bar!), another at Bordeaux and then a short hop for a third overnight in Biarritz. Down through Spain I parted company with the road to Lisbon at Burgos. We had another overnight south of Madrid after nearly having had a nervous breakdown on the ring road during rush hour.

All through France and Spain the roads were vastly improved from 1967, most of the journey was on dual carriageways or motorways and we had to traverse very few towns.

The reason I am writing this is, even with four overnight rests, if for some reason I had had to turn around and do the return journey soon after arriving I would have freaked out. But that’s exactly what our drivers, and many others no doubt, had to do and even after fifty years my admiration for them is immense. Of course they were young, but even at that it was a gargantuan feat.

Charles Fryars
@sYbuw4077

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