Puskas.com: Az Évszázad Mérkőzése — Hungary v England 6:3, The Match of the Century (DVD, 2008)

In VERY GOOD condition! As pictured! Buy with confidence!

Product Details

• UPC: 5999883969007
• Product Type: DVD, book-style digipack with illustrated booklet
• Brand / Publisher: Puskas.com / Kox Nova Produkció
• Subject: Hungary vs England, Wembley, November 25, 1953 (result: 6:3)
• Release Year: 2008
• Genre: Sports Documentary / Football History
• Style: Hungarian football, historical documentary
• Video: PAL, 4:3
• Audio: English 2.0, Hungarian 2.0
• Runtime: 98 minutes
• Language: Bilingual — English and Hungarian commentary (original BBC + original Magyar Rádió)
• Reproduced with permission of: BBC Worldwide Ltd., Magyar Rádió Zrt., Magyar Nemzeti Filmarchívum

Product Features

• Format: Single DVD in hardcover book-style digipack
• Content: Full 90-minute match footage, remastered, with original Hungarian and English commentaries
• Audio: Original BBC English commentary + original Szepesi György Hungarian radio commentary
• Extras: BBC pre-match report; the goals; story of the match; heroes of Wembley; the England players; the two coaches; legendary commentators; the rematch; picture gallery
• Video: PAL, 4:3, Color and B&W archive footage
• Condition: Very Good — disc and digipack in excellent used condition
• Language: English / Hungarian bilingual

Overview

On November 25, 1953, the Hungarian national football team walked onto the pitch at Wembley Stadium and did something no foreign team had ever done before: they beat England on home soil. The final score was 6:3 — a result so shocking that reporters in the press box struggled to find the language for it. The Magical Magyars, led by Ferenc Puskás, Sándor Kocsis, and Nándor Hidegkuti, had played a style of football that the English had simply never encountered. In 90 minutes, the assumptions of an entire footballing establishment were demolished.

This DVD presents the complete match in remastered form, with both the original BBC television commentary in English and the legendary radio commentary by György Szepesi in Hungarian — the latter broadcast live on Magyar Rádió and heard by virtually the entire Hungarian nation. For 43 years after the match, the footage had never been broadcast on Hungarian television; this release, issued on the 55th anniversary, brought it to a Hungarian audience for the first time in commercial form.

The 98-minute runtime encompasses the full match and a substantial extras package: the BBC's pre-match report, a dedicated goals compilation, a narrative account of the match's historical context, separate profiles of the two squads and their coaches (Sebes Gusztáv and Walter Winterbottom), a featurette on the legendary commentators, and a rematch segment. A picture gallery and the original Népsport front page — screaming the result to a nation that had stayed up through the night — round out the release.

The match itself: Hidegkuti scored three times, Puskás twice (one with a famous drag-back that left Billy Wright sliding), Bozsik once. For England: Sewell, Mortensen, and Ramsey (penalty). Hungary led 4:2 at half time. The game had been written about ever since as the match that invented modern football.

Interesting Facts

• Hungary entered the match having gone undefeated for 24 games, including a 6:0 demolition of Yugoslavia; England had never lost a home international to a continental European side.
• Nándor Hidegkuti's deep-lying centre-forward role — unusual enough in 1953 to be effectively invisible to the English defence — produced all three of his goals and caused England captain Billy Wright to later describe the position as "incomprehensible."
• The famous Puskás drag-back — pulling the ball away from the sliding tackle of Wright before shooting — is one of the most replayed moments in football history and appears here in original footage.
• György Szepesi's Hungarian radio commentary, preserved here, is regarded as one of the great pieces of sports broadcasting; it was heard live by millions huddled around transistor radios across Hungary.
• The Hungarian team — the "Aranycsapat" (Golden Team) — went on to reach the 1954 World Cup Final, where they lost to West Germany 3:2 in what became known as the "Miracle of Bern," one of the sport's most controversial results.
• After the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, several members of the squad emigrated, and the team was effectively disbanded; the footage of the Wembley match was not shown on Hungarian state television for 43 years partly due to the political sensitivities around the players who had left.

Match Details

Hungary 6:3 England — Wembley Stadium, London, 25 November 1953 Attendance: 105,000 | Referee: Leo Horn (Netherlands)

Hungary: Grosics — Buzánszky, Lóránt, Lantos — Bozsik, Zakariás — Budai II, Kocsis, Hidegkuti, Puskás, Czibor | Coach: Sebes Gusztáv

England: Merrick — Ramsey, Eckersley, Johnston, Wright — Taylor, Dickinson — Matthews, Mortensen, Sewell, Robb | Coach: Walter Winterbottom

Goals: Hidegkuti (1., 22., 53.), Puskás (25., 29.), Bozsik (50.) / Sewell (14.), Mortensen (38.), Ramsey (pen. 57.)

Publishers

Published by Puskas.com / Kox Nova Produkció. © 2008. Reproduced with kind permission of BBC Worldwide Ltd., Magyar Rádió Zrt., Magyar Nemzeti Filmarchívum, and Dr. György Szepesi. Concept and content: Kollarik Tamás, Szöllősi György.

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