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surprise that he scored as he averaged more than a goal a game in his long career. Twenty-one thousand, six hundred and ninety-one others fans attended the game and it was a rare taste of European football and especially of the wonderful Benfica side that had won the European Cup in 1961 and 1962 and been beaten finalists in 1963 while winning the Portuguese League in those same three years. They were by no means a one-man side and another fabled player of theirs at that time was their goalie Costa Pereira. A Portuguese guy told me that Pereira means ‘pear-tree’.
It was a Thursday evening, eight days before Kennedy was killed in Dallas and sixteen days before I saw The Beatles play at Sunderland Empire but I was a bit young for night games at the time and as I only got 6d pocket-money (that's two and a half pence in modern money) I probably couldn't have afforded it anyway. Sunderland lined up follows:-
Jimmy Montgomery
Cec Irwin Len Ashurst
Martin Harvey Charlie Hurley Jimmy McNab
Tommy Mitchinson George Herd Nicky Sharkey Johnny Crossan George Mulhall
Benfica started with Pereira, Cavem, Cruz, Raul, Luciano, Coluna, Augusto, Eusebio, Santana, Scrafin and Simoes. Youca later subbed Augusto.
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