The origins of the latest exhibit from the football pin/badge collection finds us returning to Hungary, & the third of the favoured clubs from Budapest, the mighty MTK (Magyar Testgyakorlók Köre), of whom there has always seemed something of the grandly romantic, & stately, resplendent as the team are in their besashed blue & white shirts, as reflected in the design of the insignia & badge itself, which, in this vintage instance, is very much a small object of desire, another exquisite thing to be treasured, & on occasion dandily sported upon the lapel.
The appearance of such a badge suggests history (& of course one wonders of the life of such an object, being obviously of a certain age), & that of MTK is indeed a proud one, the club having been crowned Hungarian champions on 23 occasions (first in 1904 & twice this millennium, a tribute to their enduring profile), & being the country’s first representatives (at the time known as Vörös Lobogó) in the fledgling European Cup, although the limits of their continental success were reached in losing the replayed 1964 Cup-Winners’ Cup Final to Sporting Lisbon (& what a resonant fixture that seems).
The current season has begun slowly, shall we say, with yesterday’s 2- 2 draw (disappointingly, from 2 – 0 up) at basement club Kaposvári Rákóczi (now that's a good name) providing only the 14th point from 15 league games & dropping MTK to third-bottom in the table, but hope, of course, springs eternal (a third consecutive draw at least constitutes an unbeaten sequence, of sorts), as endures devotion.
No comments:
Post a Comment