Hungary II Division

Hungary. First Division was going to be reduced from 18 to 16 teams in the next championship, so promotion/relegation was affected this season: three teams were going down in the top league, but only one promoted from the Second Division. Since this division consisted of three groups, only one of the champions would be promoted. Tough luck.

Group 1. Few clubs played at top level before, but none was in even remote situation for another climb up. The battle for the first place was between 2 clubs, leaving the other 14 far behind.

Kazincbarcikai Vegyesz finished first with 43 points.

Group 2 had the similar make as Group 1, but there was favourite among those former first division members and there was no contest at all.

MTK won with 44 points, leaving all others in the dust. Due to earlier merger, the oldest Hungarian club was still MTK-VM, thus, contributing to some confusion: there were 3 clubs with similar names in Budapest – the abbreviated Volan in the name suggests that the club attached to or representing some automotive industry was now one with MTK. But there was Volan SC in the top division and 22.sz Volan SC not only playing in the same league with MTK-VM, but finishing 2nd. The structure of representing made foggy the issue of which club was what: independent, something like second team, another section of otherwise one club?

Group 3. Nothing different – again few former members of first level, but in lowly positions by now and one outstanding favourite.

Nagykanizsai Olajbanyasz SE easily won the group with 46 points, leaving the next team 5 points behind.

What happened next is hard to recreate: must have been a final tournament promotional tournament between the group champions, for nothing else explains why the winners of Group 1 and Group 3 stayed in Second Division. However, the promotion of MTK made sense – it was the only famous club among the candidates, so it was not only nice to see them returning to top flight, but more importantly, they were the only club, which could theoretically make a difference in the top division – any other would have been instant candidate for relegation. As squads go, MTK-VM was the only team with some quality players and strong coach – Laszlo Sarosi.