Friday 8th November 2013 ko 14.00

Hungary U18 No 1 Osztaley Liga

BUDAPEST HONVED 0

MTK BUDAPEST 0

Att 89

Entry FREE

No Programme

Ever had one of those moments when you take a step back and contemplate where you are? Honvéd was another in a series for me, and when I glanced over to my travelling companion Andy, his glazed eyes told me his reaction was the same as mine.

We’d flown into Budapest the night before, and taken full advantage of the excellent, and cheap public transport. Once you’re through Customs, look to your left, and there’s a small tourist information booth. They’ll sell you a ticket that gives unlimited travel in the city for 5 blocks of 24 hours over a month, for 4,550 forints, around £12.79. Considering there’s 31 tram lines and 156.85km of track, 196 bus routes, 3 metro lines, and all the suburban rail services too, it’s a bargain by anyone’s standards!

We based ourselves in the centre of the city, near to Deák Ferenc tér and the Basilica of St Stephen. The Deák Ferenc tér metro station is handy, all three lines of the metro intersect here, so it was simple enough to catch a metro south, then a bus out to Kispest and the Jozsef Bozsik Stadion, the home of Budapest Honvéd FC.

The club was formed as Kispest AC in 1909, and changed names to Honvéd, or Home Defence in 1949 when the club was nationalised and taken over by Ministry of Defence to become the Hungarian Army team. The club took football by storm and the likes of Ferenc Puskás and József Bozsik became household names as Honvéd provided key players for the national team nicknamed “The Mighty Magyars” who became Olympic Champions in 1952, defeated England twice and reached the 1954 World Cup final.

However despite an Indian summer in the 1980’s the club hit hard times, and were liquidated in 2004. The name was immediately revived and the new club was allowed to take the place of the old in the Hungarian top flight.

The stadium remains an icon of the Magyar game with its huge floodlights and seating bowl. We stood, gaped, then decamped to the second pitch for our game. I like ticking pitches like this, before the main ground. You get a feel for the place and the journey there beforehand,  but retain much of the anticipation for the main ground at a later date.

Sadly the game didn’t live up to its surroundings. Two under-18 sides from two professional teams lacked fluency on an excellent artificial surface, and although Honvéd could and should have won the game easily the nil-nil final score looked likely well before the end.

It’s games like this that make me glad I’m as interested in the travel and architecture as the game itself. That meant that Andy and I were still sporting silly grins on our faces when we caught the bus back to Kőbánya-Kispest and the metro out to the railway at Déli pályaudvar. For as any hopper will tell you, if a game of football is a good thing, then two is better!