The Englishman who created total football and the demise of the England national team

02 November 2016 02:30

We look at our European counterparts as more technically gifted and more astute tactically in our beautiful game. Whereas the British style of play is seen as fast paced, tough tackling and very physical. Size, speed and strength were the factors that got youngsters in to the school team or local side.

Those crafty Europeans pick kids for their technique and would let the physical part develop later on. Many kids in this country have been told by clubs that they are very good but just too small. Imagine if Barcelona thought that about Messi. As a kid Messi was always smaller than those he played with, instead of giving in it taught him to improve his ball skills, balance and control.

Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency as a child. Barcelona saw the talent and agreed to pay for his medical treatment and he relocated to Spain from Argentina. He rapidly progressed through the club's ranks and made his debut for the first team aged 16 against Mourinho's Porto coming on as a substitute. English clubs back then would've have sent him home for being too small. Look at the legend he has become.

Back in the old days us English had a very inflated opinion of our footballing skills. We looked at the rest of the world with disdain and in a way rightly so. In the Home Championship we'd have close matches with Scotland, sometimes Wales and every so often Ireland. But when it came to play our European neighbours we were unbeatable.

Look at some of our results at the turn of the century, 12-0 and 9-0 wins against Germany, 15-0 and 12-0 against France, 8-1 and 12-2 versus Holland, 8-2 and 11-2 versus Belgium, 11-1 and 6-1 in Austria, 12-1 and 6-1 against Sweden, 9-0 Switzerland, 7-0 Hungary, the list goes on and on. By the time the first World Cup came around in 1930 the British home nations had fallen out with FIFA as the relationship had become strained and we refused to fraternize with enemies of the First World War and didn't rejoin until 1946. This was the beginning of a road to isolation just as the world was growing more passionate about the game.

As the Twentieth Century wore on the English team had lost a few matches against European opponents on their travels, but many considered this to be down to the long travelling to away games before flying became the main mode of transport. The FA and British footballing community still regarded the British teams as the best despite the growing and prospering World Cup tournament.

Wembley was considered an unconquerable fortress for European sides, however in 1953 that fortress crumbled. On a dank afternoon at Wembley, Hungary finally ended England's unbeaten home record against continental opposition. But it was worse than that. The defeat was by a humbling 6-3 and not only had the "Magic Magyars" shown themselves to be superior in everything from ball skills to tactics, they opened England's wounds even wider by dedicating the historic victory to an Englishman.

Sandor Barcs president of the Hungarian Football Association spoke about a little Lancastrian coach Jimmy Hogan, a 71-year- old, who was sitting in the stands. Barcs said "Jimmy Hogan taught us everything we know about football."

English FA officials were doubly mortified. The match had seen Ferenc Puskas and his superb team humiliate England; now they were hearing that Hogan had planted the seeds not only of a Hungarian football revolution but one that had spread across the whole of Europe. Hardly any wonder that many years later England's captain, Billy Wright, told the media "there were people who were of a mind to call Jimmy Hogan a traitor."

Hogan was way ahead of his time, his coaching was based on mastery of the ball and effective teamwork which in 1953 was seen to be deficient in the English players, just as it is today. After his playing days Hogan traveled to the continent, he became a football coach working across Europe and was teaching in Austria at the outbreak of World War One. He was arrested and interned as an enemy alien.

Hogan negotiated a safe passage back to the United Kingdom for his wife and children in March 1915 while he was rescued by the intervention of Baron Dirstay, the British vice-president of Hungarian club Budapest MTK, who took Hogan on as coach in order to prevent him being taken to a prisoner of war camp.

In a fairly modest career he played for Burnley, Bolton, Fulham and Swindon as a skilful inside forward. It was a summer tour of Holland with Bolton that persuaded him to take up coaching. Bolton easily beat Dordrecht and he vowed to go back and "teach them how to play" and in his early 30's he did indeed return to become the youngest-ever British coach to take up a permanent position on the continent.

A meticulous, obsessive character, Hogan is reported to have had a consuming desire for self- improvement, his extensive fitness regime and the onus he placed on conditioning being remarkably rare for a time when formalised training was generally frowned upon. This compulsion to achieve excellence at all costs would serve Hogan well during what would become a distinguished coaching career, his drive to succeed feeding and shaping the talent of the players who had the privilege of learning from his studied insight and motivation.

Hogan’s methodology reaped great rewards, MTK winning the 1917 and 1918 titles, his philosophy and methods are held to be the blueprint for the great Hungarian side of the 1950s, the Mighty Magyars were head and tails above the rest and really should've won the 1954 World Cup where the lost 3-2 to Germany in the final despite being the better team, the half fit Ferenc Puskas had a perfectly good goal disallowed by an English referee. They had hammered the Germans 8-3 in the group stages.

The thoughtful ethos of short passing and fast movement off the ball was one which stuck with Hungarian football for several generations, an aesthetic style that Hogan had championed. He was a true footballing revolutionary.

Hogan is also considered the father of German football, he visited German clubs on lecture tours, instructing players and coaches alike in tactical philosophies, such was the impression that he left that, on his death in 1974, his son received a letter from the German Football Federation describing him as “the father of modern football in Germany”.

Former West German manager Helmut Schoen, who Hogan coached at Dresden, called him "a shining example for the coaching profession". He was teaching Total Football generations before Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer brought that term into the game's language. It is often said that Brian Clough was the best manager England never had; in reality it was Jimmy Hogan.

Source: DSG