Now categorized as a Hungaricum, a product unique to the nation, like mangalica pork or Unicum, gombfoci is a game invented in the kitchens of Hungary a century or so ago.
You could say that there is nothing more Hungarian than gombfoci – but that’s not strictly true. What is more Hungarian is a Hungarian trying to explain gombfoci.
At his Pizza Mundial restaurant in Szigetszentmiklós, home to the world’s first and so far only gombfoci museum, Gábor Veress takes up the challenge.
“Well, you have two players. Or you could have one. Or a team. And then, you have certain moves, touches if you like and, then, um… actually, it’s impossible to explain.”
More than anything, gombfoci binds the menfolk of the nation. When Gábor’s chum András Becz was under pressure to clear the family home of his unique collection of gombfoci sets, a hobby dating back 50 years, the basement at Pizza Mundial was cleared and transformed into today’s museum.
A journey into eternal boyhood, with its bright counters and revered portraits, the museum is also a shrine to Miklós Fehér, the Hungarian international who collapsed and died when playing for Benfica in 2004.
Here at Szigetszentmiklós, some 15km south of central Budapest on the H6 HÉV commuter-train line, gombfoci players convene, play games and swap sets – hence tomorrow’s spring fair.
Like the sport it imitates, gombfoci came to Hungary from England. In the early 1900s, when English trainers were showing Hungarians how to play football, they would teach team strategy with counters on a board.
Taking to soccer like ducks to water, these players then re-enacted these tactics demonstrations at home. Using whatever they could find, usually a coat button, gomb, or two, they would transform the kitchen table into a replica of a football (foci) pitch. Thus was born gombfoci.
“The game really took off in the early 1950s,” says Gábor. “During the golden era of Puskás and Bozsik, when Hungarian football ruled supreme, everyone wanted to imitate their heroes. Gombfoci counters began to feature the faces of famous players on the top. Boys could have matches between different teams, and soon there were sets produced every season.”
The most valuable example in the Gombfoci Háza Múzeum is the one representing the Hungary team who beat England 7-1 in 1954. The rarest one comes from Brazil.
After gombfoci became established here, Hungarians tried to export the game to England. As boys there were already playing their own table-football games, these attempts fell on deaf ears. Brazil was a different story.
“There are two main countries where gombfoci is played,” says Gábor. “Hungary, where it was invented, and Brazil, where 1.5 million people still play it.”
What they play is a matter of conjecture. Just as every Hungarian family had different house rules, so every local club developed its own way of playing. Just as its origins are vague, how the game was codified is not certain – one source refers to a meeting in 1958 at Budapest’s venerable Kárpátia restaurant on what is now Ferenciek tere.
Today, clubs in Hungary have one agreed set of rules. Complicated ones. Unlike in Brazil. “Brazilians adopted the so-called 12-touch game,” explains Gábor. “Each player retains possession for so long until he has to aim for the goal. Then it passes to the opponent.”
Whenever the Gombfoci World Cup is played in Brazil – Gábor and his mates have been out to Rio and São Paulo – everyone plays Brazilian rules. Here in Hungary, Hungarian rules. No guesses as to who wins where.
The domestic calendar has four rounds, one for each season. Szigetszentmiklós usually fare pretty well but fall against stronger opponents from Szeged or Komló.
“It doesn’t really matter,” concludes Gábor. “It’s the playing that counts. When all’s said and done, gombfoci is about family.”
That explains the game perfectly.
Gombfoci Háza Múzeum Open by appointment (06 20 806 1013) at Pizza Mundial, Bajcsy-Zsilinszky utca üzlet sor 2/B by Posta köz, Szigetszentmiklós
H6 commuter train from Közvágóhíd to József Attila-telep (every 20-30min, journey time 35min).
