Quality time (1954 style)

Ay ay all, and fit like theday?  Today is a national holiday in The Netherlands, meaning I've got to spend quality time with the family, which as anyone with kids and a day off from work will know translates approximately as "get awa fae thon computer for once!".

So probably no updates today and probably no Four to Follow either; take a look at the piece we did yesterday for something approaching an SFL preview for this weekend.But getting back to spending quality time, here is a video I found courtesy of The Offside. Featuring the best goals of the 1954 World Cup I'm sure you can appreciate the quality and the beauty in these goals.

You're probably wondering by now just what this has to do with Scottish football. Well, there's this (a shit-fest that remains Scotland’s heaviest defeat in an international game) which featured Aberdeen keeper Fred Martin in goals.

Martin, originally an inside-right, was blamed for the scale of the defeat against Uruguay and his long term future as Scotland's custodian of the gloves was not enhanced with more heavy defeats (4-2 against Hungary and 7-2 against England in late 1954 and 1955 respectively). In his six games between the sticks, the hapless Martin conceded 20 goals, setting the standard for Scottish international keepers for years to come.

There's also this, which wasn't quite so bad, bearing in Austria would later record a 7-5 win over Switzerland further on in the tournament and ended up fighting out a third place play-off game with Uruguay.

The defeat against Austria did result in the resignation of Scotland coach Andy Beattie, demonstrating that chaos and mayhem at the top levels of Scottish football did not start and end at the Cameron House Hotel.

As an aside, the 1954 World Cup was a bad tournament for goalkeepers. Group 2, which featured teams that nowadays would be considered 'tasty', saw Hungary beating Korea 9-0, right after the Hungarians beat West Germany 8-3. The Group 2 score-a-thon continued with Turkey beating the hapless Koreans again (just 7-0 this time) before the Turks themselves got pumped 7-2 by West Germany.

The 1954 World Cup is generally regarded as one of the finest tourney's there's been, culminating in "The Miracle of Bern" final, played in the amusingly named Wankdorf Stadion in Berne in which Hungary (with the legendary Ferenc Puskás) lost 3-2 to West Germany, giving the Germans the first of their three World Cup titles.

Anyway, I digress. Right, enjoy the goals (but not the one at 2:15); I'm away to do puzzles with the kids for the next six hours.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maOccqMzJTw