The Most Famous Hungarian (probably) ever

Friends and readers -especially outside Hungary -, put your hand upon your heart and be honest: could you name any famous Hungarian composer/ pop star/film director/ writer/ sport(wo)man/ supermodel or even a rather useless celebrity just from the top of your head at leisure, effortlessly?

My guess is that you have trouble doing so. It's fair to say that us Hungarian didn't set the world alight in the last couple of decades. Maybe our beautiful mother tongue and names may sound a bit odd to the mainly English speaking world and this gets in the way, but then the Czech - Eva Herzigova, Dominik Hasek, Jiri Menzel - seem to prosper seamlessly in the face of the same drawback.

Considering all this we can be utterly thankful to the gentleman pictured below, who seems to be pretty well-known all over the world even fifty years after his prime. Actually, he is the one Hungarian person the most likely to be heard about wherever you go from the Easter Islands to let's say, Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, and I made sure of the latter one personally not too long ago.

So, Ferenc Puskás (1927-2006, pronounce it "Pushkaash" please) was "a Hungarian footballer and manager and is regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time. He scored a remarkable 84 goals in 85 international matches for Hungary and and 514 goals in 529 matches in the Hungarian and Spanish leagues. He is regarded by some as the best shooter in football history."

Thank you, Wikipedia for the contribution. In my own words, he was the captain and arguably best player of Hungary's Golden Team in the 1950s, which appallingly lost the World Cup Final in 1954 to West Germany after a 4 year long undefeated spell. Some consider this as a catalyst in the breakout of the 1956 Revolution as "Hungarians don't mind dictatorship, but they really hate losing a football match" as someone pointed out rather ironically.
Anyway, Puskás left Hungary after the Revolution and he ended up playing for the legendary team of Real Madrid, winning a couple of Champions League, Spanish League and Best Spanish Goalscorer titles during the eight years he spent with the trophy team of Franco's dictatorship (just for the sake of objectivity).
It wasn't until 1990, the fall the communism/ soft dictatorship/ whatever that he could permanently return to Hungary. However, he had the chance to come back for a nostalgia game in 1981, and according to the reports he properly charmed everyone by performing his magic tricks once again despite being a bit overweight (see 2nd picture). He also enjoyed a folk hero status already in the 1950s, many anecdotes circulated about his uneducated but sharp mind and the jokes he played on his teammates, customs officers and even on politicians occassionally. His nickname was Öcsi (little brother, kid), which was modified to Öcsi bácsi (Uncle Kid) as he got older.

Now for the personal link and testimonies of his lasting fame. A sad thing comes to my mind at first as I found out about his death in Ireland while having a cup of tea in a pub after doing a chilly cliff walk on the lovely peninsula of Howth near Dublin. One of the news channels was on the TV, you can probably guess the rest...

On a happier note the first personal testimony happened in Ballycastle a few weeks ago. We went to O'Connor's pub with Teresa and Kirsty. It was a balmy evening by Irish standards, so we sat down outside on the terrace and soon started a conversation with a jolly middle-aged fellow, who seemed slightly drunk already at 7 pm. When he found out that I was Hungarian, he firmly declared that Puskás was the best footballer who ever lived. I felt appropriate to say that George Best wasn't too bad either or so I heard. The funny part came when he revealed himself as ah Irish natonalist and a fan of Glasgow Rangers. That's an unlikely combination.

I ran into the other testimony about a week later back in Budapest. One of my recent favourite bands, Manic Street
Preachers played a gig at our local but pretty big Sziget Festival. Towards the middle of the concert bass player Nicky Wire stepped up to announce that his dad had seen Puskás playing and also considered him to be the ultimate footballer. Then they dedicated the next song, called Faster to our national icon.

So here is to you, Öcsi bácsi. Thank you for keeping Hungary on the world map even from the afterlife!