1953 was an interesting year. We all know about the Queen's Coronation, the 'Stanley Mathews' Cup Final and maybe the science fiction series Quatermass being aired for the first time on television to terrify youngsters going to bed. We saw the end of the Korean War, which was a massive relief for Britain’s national servicemen. There were a few other interesting items of note. The appropriately named United States district Judge Grim, ruling that the NFL can black out TV home games. Miserable bloke. The England cricket team under Len Hutton defeating Australia to win The Ashes for the first time in 19 years. There was bad news for rabbits with Myxomatosis reaching these shores after being illegally introduced onto an estate in West Sussex and in November the Samaritans telephone counseling service for the suicidal was started by Rev. Chad Varah in London.
During these austere post war years one thing that raised the spirits of the population was a game of football. Crowds were booming until the advent of the 'box', stadiums were at bursting point with spectators keen to watch the stars of the day. England after all, was the home of football. We had invented the game, we had the best players, the national team was unbeaten at home. Wembley was impregnable! Or so everyone believed.
In November 1953 a rude awakening came when a team who ironically had been coached by a little known Englishman, Jimmy Hogan, took on England at Wembley, and demolished them, 6-3. Wholly unexpected, the performance of the Hungarians in defeating England on their own turf sent shock waves through the football world, if not at the HQ of the Football Association. "Good Lord old boy, totally a one-off" you can imagine them bluster. Well, six months later a return fixture in Budapest saw the Hungarians crush England once more, 7-1. Hungary destroyed England with a tactical plan based on the theories of Hogan, a man from Nelson, Lancashire who had failed to get a coaching job in his own country before the war. Ignored, Jimmy took his ideas to manage with great success on the continent, particularly in Switzerland, Austria and then Hungary. That murky miserable November afternoon in London saw the little white-haired 71 year old Hogan sitting in the Royal Box at Wembley, the guest, not of the Football Association, but of the Hungarians. After watching his team take the piss out of the England team he was later called a 'traitor' by the F.A.! The president of the Hungarian Football Association, Sandor Barcs, was more candid: "Jimmy Hogan taught us everything we know about football. His coaching is based on ball mastery which appears to be deficient in the English players."
A re-appraisal of the match many years later read; 'England lined up in its usual WM formation, and included Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortensen, Alf Ramsey and captain Billy Wright - widely regarded as one of the best defenders in the world. “This will be easy” said one England player as the teams walked out, “they’ve all got carpet slippers on.” Indeed, Hungary’s footwear did look like slippers compared with England's thunderous boots, but they could smack the ball pretty hard when they needed to, as Nandor Hidegkuti did in the opening seconds, from 20 yards, his opening shot arrow straight past goalkeeper Gil Merrick. The Hungarians played in tight little triangles, then suddenly opened up with a raking pass of 30, 40, 50 yards or more to a sprinting colleague. They gave the impression that they could always score a goal if they really needed one - and skipper Puskas scored one marvelous individual goal which is still considered one of the greatest of all time. The Hungarians lined up in a 2-3-3-2 formation. Bozsik played in the deep lying midfield position, with Hidegkuti free to roam between midfield and attack. Puskás and Kocsis were the strikers, with the width provided by Czibor and Budai. The press dubbed this team from Eastern Europe, 'The Magical Magyars' and started a campaign for Jimmy Hogan to be installed as the England manager. The call fell on deaf ears. He was considered too old by the F.A. president Stanley Rous and his cohorts. It’s laughable really to think that for years to come, until Alf Ramsey took charge in 1963, the England team was still selected by a committee.
Why was England so confident? Why did a number of people state that ‘Hungary was going to be push overs?’ Hard to believe, considering that England, only three years before, had been beaten by a United States side 1-0 in the 1950 World Cup.'
Future England manager Sir Bobby Robson said of the game: "We saw a system of play that we had never seen before. None of these Hungarian 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. They were coming to England, England had never been beaten at Wembley - this would be a 3-0, 4-0 maybe even 5-0 demolition of a small country who were just coming into European football. They called Puskás the 'Galloping Major' because he was in the army - how could this guy serving for the Hungarian army come to Wembley and rifle us to defeat? But the way they played, their technical brilliance and expertise - our WM formation was kyboshed in ninety minutes of football. The game had a profound effect, not just on myself but on all of us. We thought we would demolish this team - England at Wembley, we are the masters, they are the pupils. It was absolutely the other way."
The game was broadcast 'live' on BBC television, not that many folk had a TV set, this was still a new and an amazing contraption for the best part of the population. Most football fans those days followed their local team. Corby was no different. Everyone it seemed was gushing over the Hungarian performance, not least in a town that was predominantly Scottish! Our Caledonian cousins loved it. This same week though, when everyone was enthusing about the 'Magical Magyars', it might well have been asked; 'What about the Magical Steelmen! We scored six too!"
On the end of a Steelmen thrashing was Bradford Park Avenue Reserves in a Midland League fixture. The name Park Avenue does resemble a packet of cigarettes and it was no coincidence that long before the end our visitors were puffing. The Steelmen were smoking this day. Manager Wally Akers assumed everybody was engrossed the way the Magyars controlled the game so he had a master plan to confuse the Yorkshiremen; nobody to play sweeper, no deep lying centre forward, no wingers that would track back and half backs that would play triangular passes with the inside forwards. No, Wally sent out his team with the robust Fred Slater at centre forward to obliterate the visitors defence. Cheered on by a crowd of supporters who had revelled in watching 'the auld enemy' being annihilated and then with the Steelmen running riot. Fred smacked home four goals with schemer Billy Deakin and winger John Kirk also getting in on the act. Bradford had no answer, apparently! Magical Magyars? Magical Steelmen mate!! Happy Days!
The team this November day was goalkeeper Alick Grant, Jimmy Baird and Tommy Hadden the full backs, Walter Harrison, Jim Harrison and schoolteacher Jack Connors the half backs, John Kirk, Billy Deakin, Fred Slater, Jimmy Garvey and Danny Smith the forwards.
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