6:3, 3:6, Winners, Losers, Connecting Sports into the Social Consciousness: England v Hungary, U.S. v U.S.S.R.

There, that is one pompous post title! All because of the chain that began last Sunday, January 18, when we were watching the first episode of "Grantchester," a British murder mystery series being broadcast on PBS as part of the Masterpiece: Mystery series.  Clearly taking place a few years after the end of World War II, I was curious to know exactly when (something that could easily be found from the synopsis if I had gone there first!). Since DI Keating was all mad about a football game that England lost to Hungary 6-3, I thought that might help me find out. Little did I know!

So, it turns out that this was not just a football match (soccer for us Yankees), but THE football match--a cataclysmic football match! Googling "6-3 england hungary" and you find the very first hit is its very own Wikipedia article: "1953 England v Hungary football match" answering not just my question--November 25, 1953--but all sorts of other questions, you didn't know you had: about how this match--"3-6" from the English side--fit into the psyche of English football fans, what this match--6-3 as far as Hungarians go--meant to the post-war, recently Communist Hungary. There is so much about this on the Internet, that my wandering could go on for ever, but where I started was with the tiny bit I had--its mention on the TV show I had just watched. While Wikipedia articles often mention how some historical event is picked up or treated in literature and film, this one had not been edited to add this little note. In fact, the only note was that there was a "popular 1998 Hungarian comedy film 6:3 Play It Again Tutti [based] on the match." (more on this later)


That a 1953 sports games was important enough to show up in a 2014 TV show was easily validated by several subsequent Google hits involving the November 2013 60th anniversary of the match, including The Guardian's "England 3-6 Hungary: 60 years on from the game that stunned a nation" and BBC News Magazine's "England v Hungary - a football match that started a revolution." It was also fun to find a slew of videos including original Pathé newsreel and other YouTube uploads, including the full match with English commentary. 

However, as noted I was not interested in the facts of the game and the aftermath, but of how a sports game gets stuck in social consciousness through literature and film. So I go back to the Hungarian film, and wonder if I can see it. The Wikipedia article provides little help, but a little carrot: it may be worth wathcing, since "It was entered into the 21st Moscow International Film Festival."  So I start tracking it down: IMDB has one review, a many-star rave "This film manages to capture beautifully both the excitement about the Hungarian soccer team and the drabness of the economic and political situation." A brief review in the New York Times tantalizes me even more by letting me know that this is a "time-travel comedy" and that it was "was shown as part of the 1999 Hungarian Film Week Festival." Does this mean there is an English subtitled version around?!

Hopes get dashed at the next site I find: who knew there was a blog for the "micro-universe of sports and science fiction", but there is! and on a posting about "Fullback to the Future (or, The greatest Hungarian science-fiction sports movie you’ll probably never see)", I learn:

Unfortunately, 6:3 has been mostly forgotten by the collective consciousness in the home country and English-subtitled versions are basically non-existent. A full version is available on YouTube, but, again, no subtitles.

As BuckBokai has always said, though: It’s a shame this film isn’t known outside the national borders (and to anyone not alive in the 90s, come to think of it) for surely the angst of the football fan is universal.

BuckBokai does not appear to have that link to the Hungarian YouTube full version, but it is easily found. I keep on looking (why, who knows!), find another person liking the movie (have these people really seen it?) at Hunglish.com (Hungarian news for English speakers) but again "unfortunately, English-subtitled versions of this flick are just about impossible to come by." I then find a long review from the Central Europe Review by an Andrew Horton (who turned a column in this journal into a website Kinoeye,  an online journal of European film published between 2001 and 2004): "Crushing Defeats (Part I): Hungary vs England" ("Expect to see posters for it decorating Hungarian streets for some time to come, but don't expect to see it too often on the international festival circuit.").

[As a complete aside, the second hit on Google for "hungary movie 6-3 english subtitles" is to "Cat City (Macskafogó, 1986)" which the YouTube poster claims is "is ranked 5th or 6th in the IMDb list of the 50 best Animated Films" so I started watching this about mice versus cats! But back to the real chase!]

For some reason, I back up and search Google for "hungary movie 6-3" and the fifth hit is to a 2005 The Guardian story in which "Jean-Luc Godard hardly ever talks to the press, and when he does it's as likely to be about football as film. In a rare interview, Geoffrey Macnab discovers that the original enfant terrible of the French new wave has lost none of his fire." And I learn:

His new film, Notre Musique, has just received its world premiere. Midway through it, there is a reference to the famous match at Wembley in November 1953 when Hungary (the "Magnificent Magyars") defeated Billy Wright's England 6-3. Reflecting on the match, Godard, a devoted football fan as a youngster, begins to tick off the names of the Hungarian players one by one. "Apart from the goalkeeper, I remember them all," he says. There was Puskas ("the galloping major"), the right-half Bozsik ("the deputy"), Sandor ("the mad winger"), Kocsis ("the golden head"). Stanley Matthews, he adds, is the only English player who sticks in his mind. 

Godard describes first watching the Hungarian team, which revolutionised world football, as being "a discovery, like modern painting." Most of the Hungarian players, he points out, were from Honved, the "club of the army". The country was under Soviet occupation. None the less, Puskas (an army officer) and his colleagues approached the game in a freewheeling, marvellously uninhibited style that contrasted with the regimentation of day-to-day life behind the Iron Curtain. The only team that has come close to Puskas's Hungary, Godard adds, was Ajax of Amsterdam during the Cruyff era. "Everybody played in attack and defence - it was like free jazz."

Wow, so I finally have a second previous hit on this match in film! So should I now track down "Notre Musique"? I suspect that is easier than finding 6:3!

I should also note, along the way (and that is why it got into the title!), that I started associating this football match with the U.S. Olympics win in 1980's Miracle on Ice, which is now having its 35th anniversary. However it probably was much more for the USSR, than the U.S., since it really got Russian hockey moving to dominance again. [Also, subject of very recent film--see NPR interview with John Powers about Red Army!] However, comparing and contrasting the two sporting events is really another exercise.

So, while the search goes on for literary references, I grow tired--I don't give up, I just stop!

And, oh, by the way, one last Google search ("6.3 subtitles" this time) brought me to a site where one can download 6:3 with English subtitles. Do I dare trust the site?! Time will tell.