Prophet or Traitor?

On a murky afternoon fifty years ago this November England's football team suffered their first ever defeat on home soil. But it was more than just defeat. England were humiliated 6-3 by the Hungarians (the Magic Magyars) who won with their sometimes strolling, sometimes devastatingly swift and always beautifully controlled football. Although the match is considered among most significant in the history of the game, it is not widely known that, ironically, it was dedicated by the Hungarians to an English coach, Jimmy Hogan, who before the First World War had gone abroad after only a moderately successful playing career and became perhaps the most influential trainer/coach of all time. Born in Lancashire, he developed into a skilled inside forward for Burnley and Fulham. His ball control was so breathtaking that when he turned to coaching his demonstrations often left some of the greatest players of the time feeling inferior. In Austria he linked up with Hugo Meisl with whom he later worked to produce the famous Wunderteam that came to Stamford Bridge in 1932 and astonishingly nearly beat England. He was stranded in Austria at the outbreak of the First World War and interned. Af