Sándor Szűcs
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| Sándor Szűcs | ||
| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | January 8, 1921 | |
| Place of birth | Szolnok, Hungary | |
| Date of death | June 4, 1951 (aged 30) | |
| Place of death | Budapest, Hungary | |
| Playing position | Defender | |
| Senior clubs1 | ||
| Years | Club | App (Gls)* |
| 1939-1944 1944-1951 |
Szolnoki MÁV Újpest FC |
|
| National team | ||
| 1941-1948 | Hungary | 19 (0) |
|
1 Senior club appearances and goals |
||
Sándor Szűcs (January 8, 1921 - June 4, 1951) was a Hungarian football player. He started to play for Szolnoki MÁV, but he spent his best years playing for Újpest FC as a defender and helped the club win the Hungarian League in three consecutive years from 1945 to 1947.
Between 1941 and 1948 Szűcs played 19 times for Hungary, being one of the best central defenders of Europe during the 1940's. He played together with such great players as Ferenc Szusza and Gyula Zsengellér for Újpest and Ferenc Puskás, József Bozsik, Ferenc Deák, György Sárosi or Nándor Hidegkuti for Hungary.
[edit] Death
After the communist take-over of Hungary, an era of conceptual, pre-arranged trials was started by the regime, with many victims. Also the communist party tried to get involved in every part of everyday life, and renaming the club Újpest to Budapesti Dózsa and putting them under police control was just one step of the events.
In 1951, as a result of a conceived plan, Szűcs, who was still an active player of Újpest, was tricked and blackmailed to defect the country by ÁVÓ. However, as the organizer of the events, the state police captured him not far from the border. After months spent in prison, he was sentenced to death for High treason during a secret pre-arranged trial and executed later. The law referred in the sentence was never used again or any time before.
The real reason behind the events was to warn off Puskás, Bozsik and other members of the Hungarian Golden Team from defection. The warn off was "successful", since no other Hungarian football players tried to leave the country until 1956.
[edit] Aftermath
All the newspapers and books issued in Hungary witheld every pieces of information, and officially nobody knew about the execution until the political changes in the country in 1989. Also the place of his grave was strictly confidential. After the communist regime's fall, Szűcs's story was widely published. In 1989 the death sentence was revoked and named a violation of laws. In 1991 he was posthumous awarded a police lieutenant-colonel title, because Újpest was the police club from 1950, and he had to become a policeman. Since 1993, an elementary school was named after him in Újpest, while a football tournament for youth players of the district is held every year. A documentary movie was filmed on his story in 2005.
Today, the earlier forgotten Sándor Szűcs is regarded as a martyr, who was a victim of the Stalinist regime's rampage, and the only Hungarian football player to be executed.
