Football Fanats 2025

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

Old forum members might remember when I posted about the football club of my hometown. An info, especially for them, but for others, too:

Yesterday, a fantastic and unbelievable thing happened. KolorCity Kazincbarcika SC finished in 2nd place in the second division (NB II) of the Hungarian Football League, reaching promotion to the top division of the first time! Great result for such a small town (24.000 inhabitants at the moment, though it was around 40.000 around 1990).

1   Kisvárda      17   7   6   58
2   Kazincbarcika      14   11   5   53
3   Vasas Budapest      16   4   10   52
4   Kozármisleny      13   8   9   47
5   Szentlőrinc      12   11   7   47
6   Mezőkövesd      12   8   10   44
7   Szeged      10   12   8   42
8   Budapest Honvéd      11   7   12   40
9   Budapesti VSC-Zugló      8   14   8   38
10   Csákvár      10   6   14   36
11   Soroksár Budapest      9   8   13   35
12   Budafok (Budapest)      9   8   13   35
13   Ajka      8   11   11   35
14   Békéscsaba      8   9   13   33
15   Gyirmót FC Győr      7   10   13   31
16   Tatabánya      6   6   18   24

The 12 teams of the top division will look like this in the next season:

Ferencváros (Budapest)
Puskás Akadémia (Felcsút)
Paks
Győri ETO FC
MTK Budapest
Diósgyőr (Miskolc)
Újpest (Budapest)
Nyíregyháza Spartacus
Debrecen
Zalaegerszeg
Kisvárda
Kazincbarcika

Two teams from Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county! Great! And five teams from the Eastern part of the country (three from Budapest and four from Transdanubia). However, Kazincbarcika will be the westernmost located club of these five teams.

Unfortunately, our stadium is not eligible for playing top division matches there. We will play probably in Mezőkövesd or Miskolc-Diósgyőr.

[CTG]

Old forum members might remember when I posted about the football club of my hometown. An info, especially for them, but for others, too:

Yesterday, a fantastic and unbelievable thing happened. KolorCity Kazincbarcika SC finished in 2nd place in the second division (NB II) of the Hungarian Football League, reaching promotion to the top division of the first time! Great result for such a small town (24.000 inhabitants at the moment, though it was around 40.000 around 1990).

1 Kisvárda 17 7 6 58
2 Kazincbarcika 14 11 5 53
3 Vasas Budapest 16 4 10 52
4 Kozármisleny 13 8 9 47
5 Szentlőrinc 12 11 7 47
6 Mezőkövesd 12 8 10 44
7 Szeged 10 12 8 42
8 Budapest Honvéd 11 7 12 40
9 Budapesti VSC-Zugló 8 14 8 38
10 Csákvár 10 6 14 36
11 Soroksár Budapest 9 8 13 35
12 Budafok (Budapest) 9 8 13 35
13 Ajka 8 11 11 35
14 Békéscsaba 8 9 13 33
15 Gyirmót FC Győr 7 10 13 31
16 Tatabánya 6 6 18 24

The 12 teams of the top division will look like this in the next season:

Ferencváros (Budapest)
Puskás Akadémia (Felcsút)
Paks
Győri ETO FC
MTK Budapest
Diósgyőr (Miskolc)
Újpest (Budapest)
Nyíregyháza Spartacus
Debrecen
Zalaegerszeg
Kisvárda
Kazincbarcika

Two teams from Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county! Great! And five teams from the Eastern part of the country (three from Budapest and four from Transdanubia). However, Kazincbarcika will be the westernmost located club of these five teams.

Unfortunately, our stadium is not eligible for playing top division matches there. We will play probably in Mezőkövesd or Miskolc-Diósgyőr.

Kazincbarcika will get a new stadium AND a Fidesz mayor, soon.

Meanwhile the "newbie" Győri ETO FC finished 4th in NB1 (after an incredible spring performance), they will participate in UEFA Conference League qualifications. Probably a first round fail, but still...

(Too bad, ETO is full of foreign players. That's not the team I supported since the '80s)

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

Old forum members might remember when I posted about the football club of my hometown. An info, especially for them, but for others, too:

Yesterday, a fantastic and unbelievable thing happened. KolorCity Kazincbarcika SC finished in 2nd place in the second division (NB II) of the Hungarian Football League, reaching promotion to the top division of the first time! Great result for such a small town (24.000 inhabitants at the moment, though it was around 40.000 around 1990).

1 Kisvárda 17 7 6 58
2 Kazincbarcika 14 11 5 53
3 Vasas Budapest 16 4 10 52
4 Kozármisleny 13 8 9 47
5 Szentlőrinc 12 11 7 47
6 Mezőkövesd 12 8 10 44
7 Szeged 10 12 8 42
8 Budapest Honvéd 11 7 12 40
9 Budapesti VSC-Zugló 8 14 8 38
10 Csákvár 10 6 14 36
11 Soroksár Budapest 9 8 13 35
12 Budafok (Budapest) 9 8 13 35
13 Ajka 8 11 11 35
14 Békéscsaba 8 9 13 33
15 Gyirmót FC Győr 7 10 13 31
16 Tatabánya 6 6 18 24

The 12 teams of the top division will look like this in the next season:

Ferencváros (Budapest)
Puskás Akadémia (Felcsút)
Paks
Győri ETO FC
MTK Budapest
Diósgyőr (Miskolc)
Újpest (Budapest)
Nyíregyháza Spartacus
Debrecen
Zalaegerszeg
Kisvárda
Kazincbarcika

Two teams from Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county! Great! And five teams from the Eastern part of the country (three from Budapest and four from Transdanubia). However, Kazincbarcika will be the westernmost located club of these five teams.

Unfortunately, our stadium is not eligible for playing top division matches there. We will play probably in Mezőkövesd or Miskolc-Diósgyőr.

Kazincbarcika will get a new stadium AND a Fidesz mayor, soon.

Meanwhile the "newbie" Győri ETO FC finished 4th in NB1 (after an incredible spring performance), they will participate in UEFA Conference League qualifications. Probably a first round fail, but still...

(Too bad, ETO is full of foreign players. That's not the team I supported since the '80s)

I think our mayor is a crypto-FIDESZ mayor, or at least has a secret agreement/alliance with the governing party...

[dreadnaut]

That is quite impressive, given the size of the city. I'm comparing with Italy, where maybe football culture is different, but a 24k city would have the resources for a team, but not the pool of people to get a good set of players 😅

Was football already a big thing there, as in "let's get kids to play in school, let's have little local tournaments" ?

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

That is quite impressive, given the size of the city. I'm comparing with Italy, where maybe football culture is different, but a 24k city would have the resources for a team, but not the pool of people to get a good set of players 😅

Was football already a big thing there, as in "let's get kids to play in school, let's have little local tournaments" ?

Hungary is a smaller country than Italy, we have only about 9.5-10M inhabitants. After the capital, the second largest city, Debrecen has just over 200.000 inhabitants. Kazincbarcika is the 48th largest city/town (however, we were in the top30 around 1990) in the country.

The fun fact is Kazincbarcika will be far from being the smallest town with a top division football club. 10 cities/towns will have a top division football club, and three is smaller than Kazincbarcika: Paks (19.000), Kisvárda (16.000) and Felcsút (1.700, Viktor Orbán's home village).

I don't think football is especially popular in the town nowadays. In the 80s and 90s it would have been less surprise to see our football team in the top division, when our junior team played in the highest tier, producing players for the Hungarian national team, and the town (with much more inhabitants than today) was crazy about football. But we lost the promotion playoff both in 1982 and 1990 (against famous Hungarian clubs MTK Budapest and Budapest Honvéd). The team wasn't intended to earn promotion before the start of the season. Several players came from Debrecen who were neglected there, including two former national player teams as well. They (Bódi and Varga) become the leaders of our team. When we kept on being in the 1st/2nd place of the table, the club checked for its financial support and after having success, decided to go for the promotion. Even before the last round it seemed surrealistic, but still, by now it has become reality.

By the way the most successful sport here is volleyball: we have five national championship titles and three national cup victories. The team also played in international cups and in the central European league. This season we earned the bronze medal in the national championships. But in Hungary, volleyball is much less popular than in other parts of the world, our men's national team is very far from being a big gun internationally.