25 November 1953, Empire Stadium, Wembley. Hungary 6–3 England.
By Hamish McTavish
A damp Wednesday at the Empire Stadium, a hundred and five thousand in, and a fog that would sit on the second half so the white ball had to do the work the sun would not. They had billed it the Match of the Century. Olympic champions against the inventors. Hungary had come unbeaten in twenty-four. England had never lost at home to anyone from outside these islands, and the Sunday Times, looking at that record, wrote that hardly anybody was prepared to accept that England no longer ruled the world. The Daily Mail, on the morning, had the players out to slam Hungary — and the critics. The Mirror hoped a win would justify a superior way of life. Gabriel Hanot, in the Manchester Guardian, allowed that English bravura could still take the game. Billy Wright, in the tunnel, looked at the visitors in their lightweight shirts and low-cut boots and said to Stanley Matthews that they would be all right here, Stan, they hadn't got the proper kit.
They kicked off anyway.
Forty-five seconds. József Bozsik rolled one short to Nándor Hidegkuti, who was not standing where a centre-forward is supposed to stand. Harry Johnston, numbered to mark the nine, had already started the afternoon of his life: follow the man and leave a hole, or hold the hole and let the man write the rest. Hidegkuti sold the dummy, hit it from fifteen yards, and Gil Merrick watched it go high past him. The inventors were a goal down before the first minute had the manners to finish. Jackie Sewell, fifteen minutes later, squeezed one in from a tight angle after Johnston had gone sixty yards and Mortensen had found him, and the ground did the thing grounds do when they have been promised a century. One-one. Then Hidegkuti again, from twelve yards, after Ferenc Puskás, on the floor under Alf Ramsey, still found the pass. One-two.
The turn is the drag-back. Puskás collected it at the right-hand tip of the six-yard box. Wright came for it the way a captain comes for a ball he has been winning all his life. The Hungarian pulled it back with the sole, Wright went through the space where the ball had been, and Geoffrey Green, filing for The Times, wrote that he rushed into that tackle like a man racing to the wrong fire. Puskás smashed it in from an angle that left Merrick about a foot. Wright said later that nine times out of ten he would have won that ball, and that this was the tenth, and that the opponent was the incomparable Puskás. Three minutes after that, Bozsik drove a free-kick, Puskás backheeled it, and it was four-one. Kenneth Wolstenholme, on the newsreel, told the country that before the game everybody had been telling him it was a lot of ballyhoo about these Hungarians, England would win. Twenty-seven minutes gone, four-one down.
Stan Mortensen beat a man and then another and made it two-four before the interval, which is the part English memory likes to keep because it makes half-time look like a conversation. It was not a conversation. Hungary had already had one ruled offside. They had already shown Johnston what a nine does when he refuses to play the British pattern. They came out for the second half and did it again. Sándor Kocsis headed against the post; Bozsik hit the rebound from twenty yards into the top corner. Hidegkuti met a looping Puskás cross with a volley from six yards and had his hat-trick. Six-two. Gyula Grosics brought Mortensen down, Ramsey side-footed the penalty, and the afternoon was allowed to print three-six so the inventors could say they had scored.
They had five shots. Hungary had thirty-five. The fog came in and the crowd sat, TIME said, as if at a national funeral, and then stood at the end and clapped the visitors because even a Wembley crowd knows when it has been shown something. Grosics walked on his hands. The News Chronicle put that picture on the page with the only line the night needed: NOW THE WORLD IS REALLY UPSIDE DOWN. The Times called it a new conception of football, and Agincourt in reverse, and, with the Mirror, the twilight of the gods. Clifford Webb, in the Mail, called it the mother and father of a good hiding: out-speeded, out-smarted, out-stayed. Tom Finney, who had missed it through injury and would not miss the return, said it was carthorses playing racehorses. Matthews, who had been all right here with the proper kit, said they were wonderful to watch, with tactics we had never seen before, and that they were the best ever.
Hidegkuti had the hat-trick and the space Johnston could not fill. Puskás had the drag-back and the backheel and the afternoon Wright would not get back. Bozsik had the fifth. Grosics had the handspring. Walter Winterbottom had a centre-half chasing a ghost. Merrick had six. Wright had the tenth time. Ramsey had the penalty and, thirteen years later, a World Cup that would be sold as the answer to this Wednesday. The FA had the record that was supposed to be immortal. The papers had slam Hungary, bravura, superior way of life. The world, the Chronicle said, was upside down.
They said they hadn't got the proper kit. They said slam Hungary. They said English bravura. They said hardly anybody was prepared to accept it. If you still think it was only a friendly, a funeral is only a Tuesday. It was the first home defeat to a side from beyond these islands, on a damp Wembley pitch, in the conditions they had always said were theirs.
The film is up. Pathé has Hidegkuti in the first minute, Wright running to the wrong fire, Grosics on his hands. Do not review it. Watch the kit, then the rest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS_-7AfUdcA
Related reading
- Wembley Wizards, 1928 — Scotland 5–1 at the same ground, the other immortal afternoon
- Goulashed — Hungary 4–0 at Molineux, 2022; ninety-four years later, same visitors, same word for a hiding
If the nights sit right, the shirts and the wall are at /shop.
FAQ
What was the score when Hungary beat England at Wembley in 1953?
Hungary 6–3 England, on 25 November 1953 at the Empire Stadium, Wembley. Hidegkuti scored a hat-trick; Puskás two; Bozsik one. Sewell, Mortensen and Ramsey (penalty) scored for England.
Why “the world upside down”?
The News Chronicle headline after Grosics walked on his hands: NOW THE WORLD IS REALLY UPSIDE DOWN — England’s first home defeat to a side from outside these islands.
Was it billed as the Match of the Century?
Yes. Olympic champions against the inventors; Hungary unbeaten in twenty-four; England’s home record against continental sides intact until that Wednesday.