“I didn’t want to leave the dungeon because I was afraid I’d be shot,” he recalls Jordi Mas (Barcelona, 1955), forty-six years after an experience he will never forget. Trained in Espanyol’s youth team and well regarded by the white-and-blue coaches, Mas played two seasons on loan at Girona at a remarkable level (1974-76) before being sent to Cáceres to do his military service at the age of 21. The Extremadura club was also in Tercera, it had a reputation and could be a good option to combine football and military obligations and continue growing. Once there, however, the forward lived through some of the most surreal chapters of his life. “I was a professional and Espanyol had given me to Cacereño”, emphasizes Mas, who at the time of truth found a slightly different scenario.
“It turns out that there was a military team that competed in Preferent and that wanted to play with them whether it was yes or no. They wouldn’t let me train or play with Cacereño because they wanted me to do it with them,” he explains. Even, Mas was arrested a few times and ended up in the quarter because he didn’t want to work with the military club.
The story of the ex-Girona player in Extremadura ended well, but before that the intervention, almost divine, of the Bishop of Cáceres was needed. “He had called the leaders of Espanyol to do something about it. Nothing. It had been like this for four months. Then one day when I had been arrested and was in the dungeon, they told me I could go. At first I didn’t believe it and didn’t want to go out because I was afraid I’d get shot. In the end, it turns out that the leaders of Cacereño had spoken to the Bishop to act as a mediator and thanks to him I was able to get out of the quarter and fix the situation.”
But not only did he play normally for the rest of the season with Cacereño, but he entered the history of the Extremadura club by becoming the author of the first goal in an official match at the Príncep Felip stadium on April 10 from 1977. To make it even more round, it was an Olympic goal. “It was a day against Ceuta when it was very sunny. I served the corner and almost with my eyes closed I heard a goal and then I noticed that my teammates hugged me”, he describes.
At the end of that season and despite having offers from Cadiz, Elche, Almeria or Salamanca, But he returned to Girona, in Segona B, once again on loan from Espanyol. “Girona was the first team that gave me the opportunity to be professional and to be seen. I spent three magnificent years there”, recalls the Barcelona native who, while playing in Montilivi, lived in a flat with Pep Planas and Joan Marenyà. “Aldecoa gave me the alternative and there was a very good team in the dressing room with Busquets, Miret, Torrents, Quel Duran, Toni Gómez, Barto Pagès…”. In the summer of 1978, Mas returned to Espanyol to play in Primera and continue a career that would extend to Recreativo, Figueres (80-81) and Almeria. He could even have signed for San Lorenzo de Almagro in an operation that ultimately did not come to fruition.
Now, almost half a century after his adventures for Cáceres, Mas will see a duel between two of his former teams. “In Cáceres I had a great time there with my teammates and the fans and I always look at the result they get. In Girona, I was fine there. I carry the club in my heart”, says the Barcelona native, who gets excited every time he meets other white-and-red veterans in the meetings organized by Albert Mateos. “It’s fantastic to remember the moments lived together in Montilivi”, he underlines.
