POST WAR INTERNATIONALS

It's all in the planning; on November 25th 1953 at Wembley, with 100,000 looking on, the Mighty Magyars beat England 3-6, with their famous Ference Puskas, stealing the limelight. Before the game the Magyars trained at Lake Balaton, where they used a "FOG" simulator, during training, as a preparation for the uncertain English weather. They left no stone unturned and indeed were wearing boots of a modern style, the like of which had not been seen by the English. The fog (well, mist) and boots were on show at Wembley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wdW5p3jd2Y

On May 23rd 1954, on "friendly" tour in Eastern Europe, England's men suffered their worst ever defeat, losing again, this time in the Nepstadion, Budapest to Hungary, 1-7. Ivor Broadis was England's goalscorer. Previously, on tour, they lost to Yugoslavia 0-1 in Belgrade. These defeats came just before the 1954 World Cup and confidence could have been low. But, once the tournament got started, there was a 4-4 aet draw with Belgium and a 2-0 defeat of Switzerland playing in the Wankdorf Stadium, Berne. 

Qualifying from the "group", England met Uruguay in the Quarter-final, a team that had just beaten Scotland 7-0 and of course, Uruguay were winners of the first World Cup,in 1930, so the South Americans had "history". To be honest England put up a good Quarter-final show with goals from Natt Lofthouse and Tom Finney, but they lost 2-4.

Uruguay then lost to the Mighty Hungary, who lost to West Germany in the final. In December, 1954, England hosted the World Champions at Wembley and beat them 3-1 in a full house friendly. This side included Bert Williams (Wolves) in goal, Roger Byrne (Man U), later killed in the Munich air crash, Billy Wright (Wolves), who captained the team and won 105 caps, Bill Slater a long serving FA man from Wolves, Len Shackleton, a famous Geordie centre-forward (who scored a goal), Stanley Matthews, a legend from Blackpool, and Tom Finney, a legend from Preston NE. Roy Bentley and Ronnie Allen (WBA) scored the other two goals.

International results, from the post war period, sent a shockwave through English football; for the first time, English manager and coaches started to look to the continent for tactical and training advances. Matt Busby of Manchester United, ensured that his team competed in the early Europe Cup—despite initial objections from the FA about English clubs taking part in the competition. Don Revie was an admirer of the Hungarian team, and enjoyed a late flourish to his playing career by adopting the Hidegkuti withdrawn centre forward role at his club, Manchester City, to great success, renaming it the "Revie plan". Bill Nicholson of Spurs was a swift adopter of the Hungarian principles, and used them to build the first English Double-winning team of the 20th century, and to win the first European trophy—the European Cup Winners' Cup—by an English side. Ron Greenwood built a successful European Cup Winners Cup side at West Ham based on the Hungarian team principles. Don Revie and Malcolm Allison adopted training and coaching schedules based on the Hungarian coaching styles.

The effect of this match on Alf Ramsey may be measured from the fact that England's 1966 World Cup winning side contained something of a club nucleus when Ramsey selected three West Ham players (Moore, Hurst and Peters). 

But to balance things up?? On this day in 2005, England's Women achieved a record victory of 13-0 against Hungary in a Women's World Cup qualifier 2007. Eight players got on the score sheet with Kelly Smith grabbing a hat trick.