Hungary’s golden era and its impact on modern game

IN ANY modern-day discussion about international football, it’s highly unlikely that Hungary will be mentioned as a country with realistic designs on success. However, that wasn’t always the case, and there was a time when the Magyars boasted one of the strongest teams in the world, even if those days are now in the dim and distant past.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the game will surely have heard of the great Ferenc Puskas, widely regarded as one of the best players to ever grace a playing field in an era when Hungary were feared the world over.

Indeed, they caused a sensation in November, 1953, when they travelled to Wembley and beat England 6-3, the first country ever to lower their colours in an international on home soil.

And just to prove that the outcome was no flash in the pan, the return fixture in Budapest six months later saw Hungary repeat the dose, but with an even greater degree of ease on this occasion as the final scoreline was 7-1.

Political turmoil was just around the corner in the country, though, and that was undoubtedly their golden era and they haven’t come even remotely close to repeating it in the interim.

The emergence of that wonderful team wasn’t simply an unexpected bolt from the blue either, and this point is explored in impressive detail by Jonathan

Wilson in his latest book, ‘The

Names Heard Long Ago’.

If you are familiar with the author’s name, it’s probably because you have heard one of his previous publications, ‘Inverting

The Pyramid: The History of

Football Tactics’, mentioned regularly in dispatches.

And while he has now turned his attention to Hungary, this column has also previously featured his exploration of the game in Argentina, ‘Angels With Dirty Faces’.

The research for this most recent release was the grand total of 15 years in the making, and it shows in the narrative as Wilson digs deep to uncover links with the history of modern football and the coffee houses of Budapest in the early twentieth century.

The Hungarian team on that momentous journey to Wembley in 1953 had captured Olympic gold medals one year earlier, and they came agonisingly close to adding the World Cup title in 1954 when they were beaten in the final.

And the book highlights that England wasn’t the only country to have exported managers, trainers and coaches to foreign fields both before and after in order to spread the game’s gospel.

Indeed, there was a strong Hungarian influence in a whole host of countries all over the globe, with their representatives leaving a lasting impression throughout Europe as well as in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

Wilson links the various stories and personalities together in a wide-ranging study, and there’s more than football to read about too.

Being a football player or boss proferred no obvious benefits during the war years, and many’s the prominent Hungarian Jew with a strong background in the sport that met their end in a concentration camp.

If you like to delve deep into football, and look beyond what happens inside the white lines, then this book will undoubtedly reward you by revealing a host of previously hidden gems. Wilson’s reputation continues to grow as an author of renown.

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