Premiering a device to at least get us blogging regularly here again, slight though it might be, & creatively productive as it isn't even remotely, today we present, individually, the first of the European football club badges featured in collected form yesterday.
Given the beginnings of this train of thought, it seems most appropriate to begin with the recently-acquired lapel pin badge representing the crest of the very wonderful Ferencváros, or, rather, to give them their full native due, Ferencvárosi Torna Club, of Budapest, the object being of a suitable vintage to inspire a nostalgia for when the mighty 'Fradi' featured amongst the higher echelons of not only Hungarian domestic soccer but also regularly at the business end of European club tournaments, winning the 1964-65 Fairs Cup & subsequently losing another final to Leeds United, a period that concluded, alas, just as I was developing an interest in the game, with the team's swansong appearance in the 1974-75 Cup-Winners' Cup Final, a 0 - 3 losing cause to Dynamo Kiev.
This defeat, however, occurred not before Ferencváros had eliminated not only Cardiff City & Liverpool from the competition but also the similarly glamorous Red Star Belgrade at the semi-final stage, a tie that constitutes, here at TOoT, one of the truly great match-ups across the map of European football, an aesthetically-delightful meeting of green & white against red & white.
Since, the years might have passed with varying degrees of domestic success, & ups & downs (to which the Budapest clubs in particular seem subject in the apparently ever-volatile environment of Hungarian domestic football), also including an appearance in the group stages of one of the earlier editions of the Champions' League (indeed, when that brave new world was the preserve only of champion clubs) that yielded the return of a fine 3 - 0 victory at Grasshoppers Zurich (another of the favoured clubs), a couple of draws & three good old-fashioned drubbings, including a pair of four-goal reverses at the hands of Ajax Amsterdam (& another of the particular favourites) on their way out of the tournament, yet the attraction & devotion to Ferencváros endures.
Coming right up to date, it was rather disappointing to discover that Ferencváros' latest fixture last Sunday resulted in a 0 - 3 defeat at home to Haladas Szombathely, this offset only slightly by the victors being amongst the collection of other but lesser favourites, but still the season is relatively young & there remains the opportunity to make up lost ground.
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