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Fullback to the Future (or, The greatest Hungarian science-fiction sports movie you’ll probably never see)
A football ascending to the heavens kicks off (snigger) 6:3; a truly appropriate image this is, for 1990s garbageman Tutti (Károly Eperjes) is about to enter a Hungarian sports fan’s heaven. Said Valhalla is actually of no great distance in space, but requires a time-travel voyage some 45 years back to the “Match of the Century” bringing victory Hungary over Team England at Wembley Stadium to snap a 30-year undefeated run. Against the early 1950s’ antediluvian and repressive system, Puskas and his teammates were nothing sort of angels for Tutti.
November 25, 1953 holds extra significance for our hero, doubling as the day of his birth. When he suddenly awakens to find himself miraculously transported to that age of 3-forint beers and communist propaganda, he finds himself torn in priority between meeting the mother he never knew and listening to the game on radio.
Right. So … where’s the damn radio, already?
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Happy anniversary, Hungary’s Golden Team!
In the mode of Pardon the Interruption, happy anniversary goes out to soccer’s Golden Team! On this day in 1953, Ferenc Puskas and Team Hungary recorded possibly their greatest win of all-time in torching England at Wembley, 6-3.
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William Webb-Ellis: Locus of alternate histories
You want to talk what-if scenarios, serious parallel universe-creating moments from the world of sports? Forget relatively trivial stuff like Michael Jordan going to the Portland Trail Blazers in the draft or Harry Frazee taking up the Chicago White Sox’ offer for George Herman Ruth: Go back to 1823 to find a guy that, through simply wanting to gain an advantage in a sports match literally changed world history.
The overwhelming majority of North Americans have never heard the man’s name, despite his literal hand in the creation of three sports currently played and enjoyed by billions. Though he never recorded an official statistic, his effect on the sports universe was a cataclysmic bolt that changed everything. Though his innovation was sometimes called “cheating” by contemporaries, his mode of play now defines leagues all over the world.
Ladies of gentlemen, BuckBokai presents the single most important figure in the history of modern sport itself: William Webb-Ellis!
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Who’s on First: The Doctor’s great moments in sport
Thanks to the performance contributed on the football pitch by the increasingly awesome Matt Smith in this season’s Doctor Who episode “The Lodger,” BuckBokai was inspired enough to delve the ol’ matrix memory banks for other great sporting moments from this frankly mostly cerebral Time Lord.
Some sports in which the Doctor has taken part through his 11 lives and 900-some odd years include the following.
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