Aguilar, Benito, Pirri and Zoco, Real Madrid footballers, they visit Quini in the hospital (Cihefe)
For many years and in different media, it has been repeated over and over again that elbow Quini in a match in 1972 against North Ireland it had been the work of the controversial and brilliant George Best, feeding the black legend of the British player. Not so and such error came from a famous radio announcer, echoing, after, many other journalists.
George Best was not the author of this controversial play
The truth is that Best wasn't even close to the play, but at the other end of the field. It happened in the match against North Ireland disputed in the English town of Hull, in the stadium Boothferry Park (no era London Down Road, as also wrongly repeated over and over), old house Hull City A.F.C. until the year 2002, a 16 February of the referred 1972.
The meeting was scheduled to take place in the city of Belfast, but the situation of violence that was lived in Northern Ireland (the sadly famous “Bloody Sunday” it had been just two weeks before), made the Northern Irish federation choose to transfer it to neighboring England. The threats of the I.R.A., particularly towards the player George Best, strong sympathizer of the unionist cause, they made the concentration stay in a high security climate, four policemen permanently escorted Best and the team was confined in a real bunker.
That tension was also transferred to the stadium. There was more control than ever when accessing the field and the English police multiplied their security system for fear of a possible attack. And of course, affected the players. Timely entries and the “disappearance” of a decentralized and absent Best for most of the match. Spain formed with: Iríbar, Sol, Galician, Costas, Tonono, Benito, Aguilar, Lora, Quino, Quini and Red Chechu. Later Migueli would enter Lora's place and Manolete would do the same for the injured Quini.
Allan Hunter was the real author of the elbow to Quini
The end result was a goal draw, with many of Morgan Y Red. But the most important news of the meeting was elbow Quini that caused him a very serious injury. Sportinguista forward, when jumping to head a center of Red Chechu, received the blow of the central defender “Big” Allan Hunter. The rough defense then disputed his last season in the Blackburn Rovers, and after that course he would be transferred to Ipswich Town, club where he would become one of his legends, of his most outstanding figures.
The tremendous impact of the Northern Irishman knocked down the Asturian warlock, leaving him on the ground in a semi-unconscious state. A blow than his own Quini rated as intentional: "yes, was intentional, of course, maybe he didn't have the idea of hurting me so much, but they do hit me in the face and knock me down ”.
Hunter, before the BBC cameras, he said just the opposite, who had jumped with open arms and who had been the striker, when trying to finish off, who "He had hit himself with his elbow". Recorded images leave no room for doubt: intentional elbowing into the area; Thus, penalty and expulsion.
The referee did not even sanction the play
But the referee, English Taylor, didn't see one thing or another and elbow Quini was without sanction. 'The Wizard’ suffered the most serious injury of his sports career, rupture of the cheekbone and arch of the eye. They wanted to admit him to an English clinic to undergo surgery, but the player himself asked the Spanish Football Federation who wanted to return to Spain to be close to his own.
So it was done, was intervened, in a complicated cheekbone operation performed through the mouth, and he missed almost three months of the season. A very important loss for a Sporting what, despite the prolonged absence of his figure, managed to save the category, descending to Second on Sevilla, the Córdoba and the Sabadell.
