Soccer: ‘We should be all right here, Stan’

IT IS probably the only football match to be known simply by the scoreline — 6-3.

It needs no explanation to Hungarians, English fans of a certain age or plenty of other people around the world.

For those Hungarians who experienced it in the dark days of communist repression, Hungary's remarkable 6-3 victory over England at Wembley in November 1953 was much more than a famous win.

The great Hungarian team was broken up three years later when Soviet tanks invaded the country and several of the top players continued their careers in the West, becoming a metaphor for the broken dreams of so many.

Despite the bitter-sweet memories, the win remains the greatest moment in the central European country's sporting history and is still, 50 years on, a source of intense pride for Hungarians of all ages.

There has long been a 6-3 wine bar in the capital Budapest, with fading photographs of Ferenc Puskas and the hat-trick hero of that match, Nandor Hidegkuti.

There is no shortage of books about the game and a film, entitled simply 6-3, was one of the major post-communist box office successes in Hungary.

Significantly Peter Timar's film is not about Puskas and Hidegkuti and is not set at Wembley it gives instead a taste of what that day was like for the Hungarians who followed the game on the radio inside a country then under the rule of Stalinist dictator Matyas Rakosi.

"The success at Wembley sent a message that went way beyond football or sport," Gyula Grosics, the team's goalkeeper who is now 77, recalled last week. "We were living in an awful time of terror and dictatorship and the win gave people the hope that we could get beyond those days.

"We were closed out from the world and only sportsmen, in particular footballers, could travel abroad.

"For those who couldn't, and for those Hungarians living outside the country, a third of our people, the win was a way to re-discover their identity, they felt their Hungarian identity through football," he said.

"It was a clash of two ways of playing the game," full-back Jeno Buzanszky, now 78, observed.

"England had established the WM system of two full-backs, three half-backs and five forwards, which was used across the world. We came along with 4-2-4, another way of playing the game, and as always happens in sport, the modern way proved superior.

"If you look at the Brazilian World Cup-winning side of 1958 they played with our system," he added.

That, though, is the tragedy for the Hungarians. While no-one doubted they were the greatest team of their era, one of the finest of all time, the 'Mighty Magyars' were never crowned world champions - losing the 1954 World Cup final 3-2 to West Germany despite going 2-0 ahead after only eight minutes.

Buzanszky blamed tiredness for that defeat, others pointed to Puskas playing while injured.

Ask Hungarians and they will give you any number of theories to explain how a team who were unbeaten for four years in full internationals and had beaten the West Germans 8-3 in the group stage managed to lose. It still pains Grosics to talk about that final.

Any chance of the Hungarians bouncing back from that loss was shattered by events which went far beyond the disappointment of sporting defeat.

In 1956 the pro-democracy Hungarian uprising was crushed by Soviet tanks and thousands fled the country.

Among those who spent decades outside their homeland were three of the great players at the heart of the 'Golden Team', Zoltan Czibor, Jozsef Bozsik and Puskas who all enhanced their reputations in Spain.

Perhaps the Hungarians could have survived losing the heart of their team but 1956 also cost them the next generation.

"The national youth team were on tour and they never came back. So the next generation played abroad and it wasn't until the sixties that we were able to get back to a certain level," said Buzanszky.

Puskas went on to enjoy a second career with Real Madrid, even becoming a Spanish international, news that was not allowed into the communist media in Budapest.

"We weren't able to even talk about him or the others. Of course we knew about it, but the general public didn't," said Grosics, who spent 13 months under house arrest while the secret police investigated him on false spying charges, and was eventually ordered by the regime to play for a provincial club.

Puskas was briefly re-united with the Hungarian team at the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but there was no mention of that emotional reunion in Grosics's book on the team published a year later.

"Reference to Puskas, Czibor and others was removed. In all there were 40 or 50 pages that were taken out of the book," said the former goalkeeper.

If anything the censorship only added to Puskas's reputation in Hungary, and when he was finally allowed to return to his homeland in 1981 for an 'Old Boys' game, The People's stadium was packed out.

The anniversary of the 6-3 win has been celebrated for years. Hungarians never tire of recalling the moment when their team briefly emerged from the grey of the Eastern Bloc to entrance the world with a footballing revolution.

"Still today, 50 years on, a whole country and I would venture most of the world of football recalls that game and knows its significance," says Grosics. "At the time, we could never have imagined that."

Few could have imagined what was about to unfold on that landmark date. Least of all Hungary's unsuspecting opponents.

England captain Billy Wright looked across at the opposing team waiting to walk out on to the Wembley pitch and noticed they were wearing what he called "strange, lightweight boots, cut away like slippers under the ankle bone."

Wright turned to England's burly centre-forward Stan Mortensen and joked: "We should be all right here, Stan, they haven't got the proper kit."

It was to be the last laugh England had all afternoon. Just over 90 minutes later on a foggy November day 50 years ago, the men wearing those strange lightweight boots had become the only team from continental Europe to beat England at home.

It was not just the result that hurt England, or the fact that their proud undefeated home record had been ended after 90 years. The manner of the defeat was the most painful aspect.

Hungary passed the ball brilliantly, they ran into positions intelligently, they even - unheard of in England at the time - swapped positions with each other. And they dismantled an old English prejudice that continentals could not shoot.

It was England in the old-fashioned kit, with old-fashioned boots and old-fashioned tactical ideas who were made to look a laughing stock, even though they did not play all that badly.

But they were outclassed in both individual and team skills. Hungary, on the afternoon of November 25 1953, showed England a glimpse of the future.

The fact that world-class players such as Wright, Stanley Matthews, Mortensen and Alf Ramsey were lining up for England Tom Finney was injured and missed the debacle counted for nothing.

The England players had never seen such passing and movement before. As Don Howe, later an England international himself and a future coach remembers: "They murdered us, not only with their technical ability but their tactics as well.

"They had Hidegkuti, the centre-forward, well he did have a number nine on his back, playing from deep midfield. Our centre-half that day, Harry Johnston, didn't know what to do."

Hungary went ahead inside the first minute with a brilliantly-executed goal from Hidegkuti.

Although England equalised after 15 minutes, Hungary were already controlling the match and after only 28 minutes led 4-1 with three goals coming in an eight-minute spell from Hidegkuti and two from the incomparable Ferenc Puskas, his first one of the most famous goals ever scored at Wembley.

The Hungarian captain totally fooled Wright with a drag back before he blasted home between goalkeeper Gil Merrick and the near post.

England pulled one back before half-time when Mortensen made it 4-2 in the 38th minute. But Jozsef Bozsik made it 5-2 in the 50th and Hidegkuti got his third and Hungary's sixth three minutes later.

ALF RAMSEY scored a consolation penalty for England after 57 minutes and the only surprise was that Hungary did not add to their tally in the last 30 minutes.

But by the end of the afternoon the England careers of more than half the team were effectively over. Some dismissed the result as a fluke, others realised the English game had to change.

Over the next few years, English training techniques were modernised players began to play with a ball rather than go for countless long runs. Ball control was improved, playing kit became lightweight, even English boots became streamlined, cut below the ankle bone.

Thirteen years later England, coached by Ramsey, won the World Cup. Their style of play was markedly different from the way Hungary played in 1953, but the roots of their success can be traced back to November 25 1953, the day England learnt a foot-balling lesson.