united were under no disillusions that they were again up against top-class opposition, as don revie had had the hungarians watched on three occasions. he concluded that they were something special and had many fine players with the balding winger ferenc beni probably the best of all. their line-up often included a young laszlo fazekas, janos gorocs, kingpin ferenc bene, antal dunai and sandor zambo, in the forwards. five of their team were in the hungarian thirty picked for the 1966 world cup tournament in england. they were goalkeeper antal szentimihalyi, full backs beno kaposzta and kalman sovari, and forwards ferenc bene and janos gorocs. they had already knocked out everton and fc koln in their march to the fourth round and were being talked of as likely winners.
the expectation was that it would be a close and keenly fought contest but to everyone’s surprise it was a very one-sided affair. ıt was an exquisite performance at elland road that saw united win convincingly by 4-1, with goals from terry cooper, willie bell, jim storrie and billy bremner. there was a light-hearted interlude when a dog got on the pitch and play was held up for ten minutes while players and would-be dog catchers tried to entice it to make its exit. additionally, there was education for the leeds fans, when the programme informed them that their opponents pronounced their name ‘wee-pesht doughzha’.
elland road was a gluepot as heavy rain had left it almost water-logged and the game was in doubt right up to kick-off, when the referee gave the go-ahead, much to the annoyance of the hungarians who knew the pitch would inhibit their skills.
united hit the lead as early as the sixth minute, as jim storrie won the ball in midfield to feed willie bell overlapping on the left. his strong low drive could only be parried by anatal szentmihalyi, the ujpest keeper, and terry cooper was on hand to sweep the ball over the line. united poured forward and jim storrie had an header disallowed for offside, as johnny giles and billy bremner directed operations from midfield. united were attacking down every conceivable avenue and ujpest must have thanked the dog for giving them ten minutes to regroup and get their breathe back. but as soon as play resumed it was united that came back refreshed and ujpest hardly saw the ball and it led to a magical spell of goalscoring.
ıt was in the last ten minutes of the first half, which had been prolonged due to the dog incident, when united wrapped up the game with a three goal burst. after thirty-five minutes of play willie bell powerfully headed home a peter lorimer cross for united’s second. seven minutes later jim storrie back-headed the third after great work down the right wing by mike o’grady. then it was mike o’grady, once more, doing the spadework to lay on the ball for billy bremner to dribble round the keeper and into an empty net just one minute later.
the game was effectively beyond recall. but, with ferenc bene moving to the right wing, ujpest opted for all out attack in the second half. ıt paid dividends with antal dunai scoring a consolation goal in the seventy-fourth minute after gary sprake could not hold a fierce shot from erno solymosi. but united were well satisfied with their three goal cushion to take to budapest.
