Football's forgotten genius remembered at London tournament after tragic career

Before Juventus embarked on their run of Scudetti in the 21st century, their neighbours Torino had won five in a row.

The 'Grande Torino' side, as they were known, might even have won more had tragedy not struck. On the way back from a game against Benfica in 1949, a plane carrying the Italian champions crashed, killing all on board including 18 players.

The manager of that team was Erno Egri Erbstein, a holocaust survivor from Hungary and father of the modern game whose story was all but lost to the English-speaking world. Now, though, teams from England and Hungary are coming together for the second edition of a tournament which celebrates a man who left a lasting impact on European football.

That we know as much as we do of Erbstein's story owes a lot to Dominic Bliss, who wrote an English language biography of the manager and one-time player in 2014. "To me as a football writer and a bit of a football history completist, I felt there was a huge chapter missing in everyone's understanding of how the game had developed in central Europe and Italy, and I wanted Erbstein's story to be told and decided to do it myself," Bliss tells Mirror Football.

After the book was published, a group of Hungarian football fans took it upon themselves to reform Budapesti Atletikai Klub (BAK), the first team represented by Erbstein in his playing days. That was in 2018, more than 70 years after the original club folded, and the following year saw BAK take part in the inaugural Egri Erbstein Tournament alongside two other Hungarian sides and English non-league outfit Corinthian-Casuals, on whose committee Bliss serves.

That first tournament was held in Budapest, the city where Erbstein began his career and also where he, along with another legendary coach in European Cup winner Bela Guttmann, escaped from a Nazi labour camp during the Second World War. Three years on, Corinthian-Casuals are set to host the second edition of the tournament, to be held in London on July 23-24.

They do so as holders, too. Back in 2019, they beat BAK 3-0 in the final while wearing kits bearing the names of that historic Grande Torino side, and now they have a title to defend.

"Egri Erbstein's legacy really is the Grande Torino," Bliss explains. "The name Egri Erbstein was kind of lost to time because he was the manager of this great Torino side that won the Scudetto five years in a row in the 1940s and then died in a plane crash at the peak of their powers on the way back from a game against Benfica.

"The power of this team to bring Italy together - because they were also the Italian national team, essentially - was so strong that there were days of mourning after this plane crash and they're still remembered to this day as arguably the best Italian club side of all time. They're compared to Sacchi's Milan and the more recent Juventus team. So that was the thing that was remembered, really, and the manager's name was kind of forgotten.

The 2022 edition will see Corinthian-Casuals and BAK joined by Sheffield FC, the oldest extant football club in the world. Former United States champions Fall River Marksmen had been slated to play before being forced to drop out, with Somali British Champions League holders Hilltop FC taking their place.

"I was approached last Autumn, it was an invite that was hard to turn down," Sheffield FC secretary Stuart James tells Mirror Football. "I discussed it with our management and chairman, and the answer was "yes" before I'd even had an opportunity to pitch the whole concept to them.

"Obviously Sheffield FC have a massive input to the history and heritage of the game, and Corinthian-Casuals are massive football evangelists, so put the two together - plus the diversity of the teams that are involved in the tournament - we were never going to turn it down."

If Sheffield FC and Corinthian-Casuals both win their semi-finals, they will meet for the first time in more than a century. That clash came in the first ever FA Amateur Cup, with Casuals FC - as they were before merging with Corinthians - coming out on top.

James admits to being swayed by the history of the teams involved, and expects a number of supporters to make the trip south. "We expect quite a few Sheffield FC fans to make the journey, the interest and excitement amongst our regulars is pretty high, and if our past pre-season tours to Germany, Netherlands and Russia are anything to go by it should be well attended by our red and black followers," he adds.

Bertalan Molnar, president of BAK, recognises the irony of a Hungarian one-time sports writer learning about a Hungarian coach thanks to an Englishman. However, he also acknowledges political involvement in his country's football environment - something also prevalent in the 21st century - could be a factor in Erbstein's story taking so long to be told.

"In Hungary we sometimes go back in time and stop everything at the golden team of the Puskas era, or the Mighty Magyars as you call them," Molnar, who re-established BAK during a period of disillusionment with the current state of Hungarian football, tells Mirror Football. "Sometimes we don't go further back from this time, so it means everyone knows we beat England 6-3 at Wembley and so on, but a lot of people don't know we had a team at the 1938 World Cup that finished second behind Italy.

"Everyone knew the Puskas team lost the World Cup final, but not too many people knew or know right now there was another World Cup final we lost in Paris in 1938. My mission - if I can use this huge word - is just to have some focus for these older legends before the Second World War, these players and coaches who played for Hungary and played a very major role in European football life.

Hungary's national side have earned some impressive results of late, reaching the most recent European Championships and delivering an eye-catching 4-0 victory over England in the UEFA Nations League. However, even here, it is hard for Molnar to look past the ways in which football and politics are intertwined.

"When we beat the English team it was a complete triumph for the government and for the political parties, and all the national team players sent positive messages and thanked the Prime Minister, which is completely crazy," he says. "It happened in the 50s when we had a huge dictatorship and football was one part of the political system, and it's the same story [with] what is happening now.

"I don't think it's possible, for example, for one of the players from Liverpool or Spurs saying 'this was a very nice result and thanks to the [British] Prime Minister' - it's crazy. And more or less this is happening now [in Hungary] - the Prime Minister will ask for the changing room by the captain of the national team. It happened when Puskas played and the dictator wanted to be part of the success."

Still, while Molnar believes there is some disillusionment around the state of top-level football in Hungary, this hasn't translated into a grassroots revolution of the kind we've seen with clubs in the lower reaches of the English pyramid, or in Europe with tournaments like the Fenix Trophy. He hopes, however, that the chance for BAK to play in front of a decent-sized crowd at this year's Egri Erbstein tournament will give them the audience they deserve.

The dream for Bliss, meanwhile, is to hold the tournament in Turin one day, and the redevelopment of Grande Torino's Stadio Filadelfia - which lay derelict for years - has offered some hope. Torino's sporting director Antonio Comi was present at the 2019 tournament, along with Erbstein's daughters, and there is - at the very least - recognition of the tournament from the club where the manager left his footballing legacy.

"It would be brilliant if a Torino representative side would take part as well, the Primavera would be perfect," he says. "If I was to take on this ridiculous logistical challenge one more time, that would be the carrot for me, the possibility to take it to Turin."

For now, though, the plan is to maintain the spirit of the tournament and to preserve the memory of the man whose name it holds. The way to do this, it seems, is to bring together a group of teams who - at one point or another - were the best in the land.

The 2022 edition of the Egri Erbstein Tournament takes place in London on July 23-24.