Sunday, June 23, 2024

Cue Ninety-Minute-Nationalism . . .

I fear the worst . . . I fear the worst many times over . . . different permutations . . . Hungary finally turns up in the tournament and humps Scotland . . . Scotland play out of their skins, beat the not so mighty Magyars, and still don't go through to the knockout stages 'cos of that massacre in the opening game against Germany.

Anyway, that's enough about me and my doom laden nature. Back to the good stuff that you find on Facebook. The pic below is the front page from a 1954 football programme, advertising a friendly between Scotland and the brilliant Hungarian team from that period. Were the Mighty Magyars the best team never to win the World Cup? (Some say they were robbed through nefarious means.) As much as I love the Dutch team from the 70s and the French and Brazilian teams from '82, I think it's fair to say that a team that included Puskas, Czibor, Kocsis and Hidegkuti were head and shoulders of their contemporaries, and the fallout from the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 means that Hungarian team is one of those 'might have beens'.




PS - And what was the result back in '54? Cue the Lost Glasgow account from Facebook which provides us with the information:
"Scotland lost 2-4, but it was like a victory, because England had lost to Hungary twice by much larger margins, 3-6, and 1-7."
Scotland   . . . Scotland fans . . . never change.

PPS - More info on the '54 game.

. . . 13 minutes and counting to D-Day.

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