Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1955. január-június (4. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1955-01-06 / 1. szám
AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ January ff. 1955 43Hungary Today At the invitation of the Internationa! Skating Association, Budapest is preparing to stage the 1955 European championships on January 28—30. The city’s giant bpen-air artificial rink in City Park will be used for the contest, as it provides room both for the competitions and for all the practice needed by the anticipated 80 foreign competitors. As the free-skating competition will be held at night, the lighting system has been augmented to give daylight brilliance. A new loudspeaker system has been installed and a grandstand for 6,000 spectators is being built. • It took József Antal, a Hungarian farmer, ten journeys with a two-horse cart to carry home his profits from the Petőfi co-operative farm at Felnemet this year. He got 44 mazsa (5 tons) of wheat, 2 of maize, 6 tons of apples, nearly 10 tons of fodder beet and $2,400 in cash! His share was worked out on the basis of his work with that of two members of his family. Co-operative farms keep a record through the year of work done by members and distribute surpluses at harvest time according to the number of workunits accumulated by each member. • More than 3,600 peasant families joined farm co-operatives in the third quarter of 1954 the Central Bureau of Statistics reported. Mechanization of farms makes steady progress. Since the beginning of the year, up to September 30, 2,423 trac-1 tors, more than 1,500 combines, threshers and harvesters, 16,000 ploughs, 17,000 harrows as well as thousands of small agricultural machines were supplied by industry. ■— HUNGARY’S MIRACLE SOCCER TEAM By beating Scotland’s national soccer team at Hampden Park, Glasgow, by a score of 4:2 before a crowd of 140,000, Hungary’s internationally famous soccer team wound up another great year: Out of 14 international contests they won 12, tied once and lost one. Hungary’s great national team has never been defeated on their own ground since 1954. Football the National Sport Though Hungary has a world standing in many other sports, notably swimming and water polo, table tennis, I fencing and gymnastics, football is undoubtedly the great \ national favourite. Nearly 100,000 players are registered with the Football Association—a high figure for a population of only ten million—against only 15,000 in 1939. In addition to the registered players, hundreds of thousands play regularly in school and other games. Hungary was badly damaged by the war, and many I spoi'ts establishments lay in ruins at its end. Generous government assitance for the I manufacture of new equipT ment and the construction of Joseph Bozsik, soccer player new rtg grounds p|aved an par excellence and Member . f of Parliament important part in the country s rebirth m the sporting sense. In Budapest alone there are 1,368 sports grounds (population 1,600,000). Selecting the National Team The backbone of the national team comes from two of the most famous Budapest Clubs—the Honvéd (Army) and the Vörös Lobogó (Red Banner). In recent internationaly games Honved (Army) have supplied such men as Ferens Puskas, internationally regarded as one of the best, if not the best footballer in the world. Right-half Józsefe Bozsik and inside-right Sándor Kocsis. From Voros Lobogo come full-back Mihály Lantos; center- forward Nándor Hidegkúti ana Karoly Sándor. József Bozsik, 29-years old, is a Member of Parliament. At the age of 12 he was a grocer’s delivery boy and later carried bricks and mortar for a builder. In the evenings he was always to be found kicking a ball around with the local boys in his home town of Kispest, a Budapest suburb. Training Methods There is no special “secret” m the training of the Hungarian footballer. The basic principles are rigorous training, all-round physical and intelluctual activity, and constant medical control. Mandi trainer of the national team, has said this about his training methods: The first two basic principles of building a good football team are complete mastery of technical and tactical knowledge. In short, to know every trick in' the book—and then some—and to practice them ceaselessly. The greatest technical and tactical knowledge, however, is useless if the player is not fast enough to put it into use. “My aim in training,” Mr. Mandi says, “is to develop strength, suppleness and adroitness. “Our players are much benefited by the fact that be sides running and sprinting they practice the long and high jump, weight-throwing, javelin throwing and steeplechasing. They also swim and practice movements of other branches of sport. “All this fast movement, however, can only be borne by players in superb condition. When the national league games end in December, training begins afresh to the following schedule: 1) Transitional training period: a period of two or three weeks of light occupations and games without football, 2) Foundation training period: four or five weeks of gradually increased cross-country running, walking and gymnastics and games in the gymnasium with a football (the cross-country training is only for adults). 3) Period of training to develop form: three or four weeks on the football ground to develop ball technique, tactics, speed, elasticity and team work. Throughout the year training is under medical control. All leading clubs have medical offices and sports physicians. The physicians give not only first-aid and treatment, but co-operate with the coaches in getting players into first class physical condition. Joseph Bozsik, soccer player par excellence and Member of Parliament During the summer 2,000 agronomists, 200 engineers and 1,800 skilled industrial workers were moved into the farms from other branches of economic life. Other figures in the report reflect the rising standard of life: People drank 16,400,000 gallons of beer in the quarter — 2,200,000 more than in 1953’s third quarter. Long distance bus passengers increased by six million and trains increased by half a million. Five thousand motorcycles were purchased—two and a half times as many—and 30,- 000 bicycles (7 per cent up). Five thousand books, in 9,600,000 copies, were published (29 per cent up). Factory industry as a whole fulfilled it’s quarter’s plan by 100.5 per cent. Light industry exceeded its target by 7.7 per cent and the food industry by 11 per cent. Dear Editor... (The writer of this letter is one of the most promising young football stars in the Midwest. The Editor mailed him an advance copy of our article: “Hungary’s Miracle Soccer Team” and this is his reply.) I am taking pleasure in dropping you a few lines to thank you for the story about the history of the Hungarian football (soccer) team. As I am a sportslover I was interested in it. I showed it to some of the other fellows that I played with and a few other sportslover around town and they all were very interested in it. I can say that I am very proud to hear my father’s native land produces such good football teams. Since I am connected with sports I know that no team can reach a record like the Hungarian team did without the boys having the desire to play. Our coach always said: “The difference between a good football player and a great one is one step and a little more desire” and I agree with him. My father who is also a sportslover translates all the sports news in the Hungarian paper that I cannot read myself and I am most interested in it. D. R. (The Editor invites comments, letters from the readers of the “Review of the Month”. Each relevant letter will be published. Your name will be witheld upon request but the letters must be signed.) Hugo Gellerts’ 40th Anniversary (Continued from page 11) hammers, giants with power on Rockefeller's walls: there are figures bound and strangled by tickertape and a young girl hides her face in shame as a worker brandishes his fist at those who destroyed her. And the eye moves to a working-class mother who holds her baby toward the sun which Hugo painted on the ceiling. Sparks of the sun are shooting off and Hugo drew them as red stars. The architect who supervised all the interior decorations looked at the murals as they were being completed and suggested nervously, “Wouldn’t it be better to give those red stars another color?” “No” Gellert deplied quietly “my color scheme demands red.” The red stars stayed. A German worker who was an expert in materials for murals came up at that moment: “Mr. Gellert” he said, “Allow me to congratulate you. At last I meet a man who has the courage of his convictions. But I hope that Rockefeller don’t see your painting.” Rockfeller the Elder did see it, Hugo learned from an elevator man he had befriended. The wizened millionaire had come in, accompanied by his wife, looked sternly at the drawings and shambled away, muttering, “They can’t accuse me of being narrowminded now.” Perhaps that is the way is -was, Hugo says he took the elevator man’s word for it, but the fact remains that the mural is there to this day. _ ★ THE QUIET ARTIST has hidden within him the clamorous bravery and power of his creations. Volumes can be written about his art, it can be suggested here. But his battles were not always waged in his studio and before his easel. He can come out in person and fight. There was that time of the Horthy regime, for instance. A delegation of sleek nobles came to New York from the Budapest of that time—the capital of a fascist land—to unveil a statue of Kossuth, the famous Hungarian revolutionary. Gellert and his Hungarian friends saw this as a defamation of a grand tradition, Hugo hired a World War ace and sat in the cockpit beside him on a flight above the ceremony on Riverside Drive. Hugo dropped leaflets that told the truth of the Horthy terrorists. “The leaflets fluttered down by the thousands like a great flock of doves, exactly on the crowd and on the platform. The elegant spokesman for the Hungarian tyrant retired in fright and confusion.” And he lived to see the new Hungary, the people’s Hungary, of which he is so proud. ★ YES, THIS MAN of art is a man of deeds. He respises the inquisitors, the native terrorists working to cow our people into silence and he abhors the inroads they have- made on the artists’ world. He sees non-objective art, so- liberally endowed by millionaries like the Guggenheims, as. a flight from life and reality, an escape from the truths of today. “What hurts me most is to see a new generation of artists taught to shy away from truth in meaningless abstractions that are a flight from responsibility.” He sees, that as a crime akin to killing a man. That way is not his, this artist and fighter who has. dedicated his life to mankind. “Humanity” the plain man with the sharp eye and the heavy mustache of an old- fashioned workingman says “needs food, clothing, shelter before it can fulfil its bright aspirations: only then can Man realize himself. Like Heinrich Heine he sees his art as a “sword” and himself, the artist, “as a soldier in the Liberation War of humanity.” J. N.
