THE JERONIMOS CLUB

FOREWORD

It was on a trip I made to the islands of the West Indies, in the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. While temporarily residing in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I went for a weekend to a nearby, beautiful and paradisiacal place: the island of Saint Thomas. There I met an elderly Spanish man, widowed and lonely. He approached me, almost with a shy smile. We talked. It was Miguel. He had lived his first years as an emigrant in New York City, then went to work in Miami and ended up happily on St. Thomas. He was an affable, cultured man, battered by adversity. An illness took away his only son and yet the vicissitudes could not destroy his great dream: to return one day to his homeland to die in it. Miguel is passionate about football. This colourful, virile and noble sport is also directly related to the happiest and most unforgettable period of his life: his childhood and youth in the streets of Madrid.

        On the day of my return to Spain, Miguel showed up at the airport in San Juan. He had made the short trip from St. Thomas to say goodbye to me. He envied me. He placed a manuscript in my hands and said it was a gift for me to distract me during my hours in heaven and to dispose of as I pleased. He said: "My son always had great respect and fascination for those of my generation. He wanted to know who my comrades were and what we were doing when we were nine, fifteen and older. I wrote that for him and with all the youth of today who study, work and play football in mind.

      One day they will be old, like me, and they will remember their youth, their friends, the boys in their neighbourhood... When I go, my first day in Madrid will be to visit my old home and meet my old mates. How can I describe that moment, that emotion...? Antón Martín... Amor de Dios, Huertas, Paseo del Prado... I know how much Madrid has changed; it has grown, it has been renewed and it is younger. Where there used to be wastelands, they tell me, now there are long, wide avenues, with majestic buildings and elegant shops. Oh, my first Christmas there... It will be like eating French toast bathed in tears of gratitude. In the first days of my return, I will walk at nightfall along the railings of the Botanical Gardens, stroll around the Prado Museum and meditate in the early hours of the morning sitting on the steps of San Jeronimo el Real".

     Shortly after the plane took off, it dawned on me that I didn't know Miguel's surname, or even his address.

     I read the manuscript and found in it: tenderness, humour, a spirit of camaraderie and a childlike, gleeful sincerity. I would like to point out that, for the long-suffering youth of our post-civil war period, the "little games" of the street battles represented the forced release of an almost physiological need. (I personally took part in one of those skirmishes). As for the anecdotal episode of the little "asphalt guerrillas", the blood did not reach the river. The consequences did not go beyond a bump and the odd scratch. Those kids, let's not forget, were small people, survivors, who had just inherited from their elders the rubble, fatigue and hunger of a barbaric fratricidal war. They were, in short, a nascent generation that saw the route of its pilgrimage to the future strewn with great obstacles and covered with dark clouds.

                                                                                                                                                     J.M.