Budapest is a decent place to stay, even in late October. We were in an old part of town, about ten minutes from the river. That meant that I could go for a stroll along the embankment before starting work or when I had a gap between meetings. I checked out the steelwork on the bridges to see if it was stamped with anything like ‘Dorman Long’ but didn’t see anything that denoted a Teesside connection.
For my first ever Hungarian fixture I selected a game in the Hungarian Cup between second-tier Vasas and fourth-tier Mezoors. It was at the Illovszky Rudolf Stadium, which is fairly new, having opened in 2019 and with a capacity of just five thousand.
I had no idea how popular an early cup round would be and so bought tickets online in advance. Jen and I travelled there on the Metro, which was easy enough, and then walked the last ten minutes.
I’d been a little worried that I might need some sort of fan ID card, as I’d read about them when looking at a possible game later in the week. When we reached the turnstiles, a steward scanned a card of her own for everyone in addition to our digital phone tickets. Perhaps there was a requirement, but it was waived for cup games? Who knows?
I needn’t have worried about getting tickets in advance as, despite the small capacity, there were plenty of empty seats. We were along the side of the pitch in regular seats and there were rail seats behind each goal. Each team had around thirty ultras supporting them from their respective ends with flags and drums.
There were a few options for food. Jen got a giant pretzel thing that had cheese on it. I tried a bit but wasn’t too impressed with the bread to cheese ratio. It would have been better reversed. A fella in front of us had a more interesting selection of a slice of bread with onions and what might have been some kind of paprika spread. You were allowed to drink in the seats, but I didn’t bother.
This was a round of thirty-two tie and so the fourth-tier side had already done well to progress as far as they had. I noticed that Vasas were fielding a lot of players with high shirt numbers, so it’s possible that they might not have been at full strength.
The home side had most of the early possession and went ahead mid-way through the first half with a header from a floaty free-kick.
Mezoors made a game of it and kept the deficit to a single goal until the last quarter of an hour. Some sustained pressure from Vasas brought about a second goal much to the relief of their fans around us. A curled injury time third goal seemed harsh on the fourth-tier side.
That’s now sixty-seven countries where I’ve watched football, two thirds of the way towards my target of a ton.
Trail of the Lion King 