Guest Blog by Ben Luckock, Head of Policy Team at British Embassy Budapest
Just over sixty years ago Hungary beat England 6-3 at Wembley. For England, the defeat led to a fundamental review of antiquated training and tactics and the adoption of more continental methods. Sir Bobby Robson said of the game: “We saw a style of play, a system of play that we had never seen before. None of these players meant anything to us. We didn’t know about Puskás. All these fantastic players, they were men from Mars as far as we were concerned.”
Now, as any England fan will tell you, it is ridiculous to look back further than, say, 1966 when reflecting on past glory. But, in Hungary, that day on 25 November 1953 is still well remembered. Hungarians now have another victory to celebrate – the defeat, by top Hungarian team Videoton, of the British Embassy’s 6-a-side team. OK, you could have predicted that right? In fact you might ask yourself what on earth we were thinking when we suggested this match to them. But, rather than being completely humiliated by professional footballers at least ten years our juniors, we were only moderately humiliated by the technical and training team from Videoton.
photo before the start of the match
The match started well, with GB United in the lead after two minutes of play. It went downhill after that at varying degrees of steepness and speed. But a strong performance from a team made up of Embassy staff and friends saw us put a further three in the back of Videoton’s net over the course of the match. Sadly that wasn’t quite enough to beat a team who, frankly, live and breathe the game every day of their lives. It was only at halftime that I got a chance to chat with opponents, learning that not only did they all get paid to help professional footballers get better at the game but that a number had played top level football themselves. That put it all into context a bit more.
And the final score? Well, as I said, we got four (two were mine but I am far too modest to make anything of that) and Videoton… 15. Very well deserved by them.
We ended the match as I started this blog – remembering the giants of ’53. We did that with a post-match drink at a fantastic Puskás themed pub with our new mates from Videoton.
Read further reports on the friendly match:
Magyar Nemzet Online: http://mno.hu/sport/jose-gomesek-megvertek-az-angolokat-1209516
Vác Online: http://www.vaconline.hu/sport/egy-meccs-amelyen-az-angol-nagykovet-is-labdaba-rugott-2.html