I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan by Half Man Half Biscuit (1987) discussed...
I’d hazard a guess that most HMHB fans are of a certain vintage. NB10 is in his early 50s and I am a tad older. What men of that age share is the fact that there was really only one TV station of any note to watch for decent midweek sport in the early to mid-1970s. That was, of course, the BBC, specifically Sportsnight on a Wednesday. I’m sure most of us could bang out the theme tune and reminisce about David Coleman.
British/English football was fairly insular in those days. There was no wall-to-wall coverage of the European Cup, as it was then known, and results would appear at the bottom of the Sportsnight screen and, perhaps, a crackly report would be telephoned through if an English club was involved. Strange sounding names would appear and the anchorman (for it was always a man then) would murder the pronunciation of these exotic clubs from far away as the scores were read out.
I personally looked out for Grasshoppers. Why would a club be called that, I wondered. Where did they come from? I can’t say I was as fanatical as the bloke in the song. Grasshoppers doesn’t scan very well, for a start. I can see him, in his mid-teens, soaking up the results looking out for his favourite club; one that was behind the Iron Curtain in the homeland of Puskás and goulash. Seeing as there was no Google, nor even the internet, research would have been done in the local library’s copy of the Rothmans Yearbook or back issues of Shoot! Facts would have been painstakingly gleaned and knowledge stored to impress schoolmates.
Ah, the good, old days of black and white television, dull Wednesday evenings and a very smoky living room watching Sportsnight. Thank fuck we’ve moved on, eh?
See lyrics to I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan
s.g.d., a Shropshire lad
good work – I always used to think that it was “violent whisking mood” thus the Morphy Richards” link, I will have to give it a proper listen tomorrow.
15 October 2008
Andy Harvey
One of my favourite HMHB songs. I’ve lived in Budapest for 8 years now and the Honved ground is such a dump that I only went once & couldn’t face another game of such dire crap. Honved were the military team under communism, that’s why Puskas was made a major in the army. Now just another shite Hungarian football team…
23 October 2008
Mr Larrington
Hello Attila 🙂
24 October 2008
dagenham dave
God, yet another one I’ve been singing the wrong words to for years, I always thought it was ‘a vile and whisky mood”…….
28 March 2010
Bill Stow
Haven’t got my vinyl version to hand but the song on the CD version starts with a ‘yeah’
5 October 2010
ACIDIC REGULATOR
As opposed to I Was A Teenage Werewolf or Frankenstein – two films so dire that they had disabled my Bleedin’ Obvious detector until a couple of minutes ago.
17 August 2012
JUSTMARK
OK, I need some help with this one and I get the feeling I’m on my own!
“Woke up this morning, found myself in bed” – I assume this is a wry comment on the stereotypical Blues song opening line. The fact the lyrics fail to mention ‘my woman’ or ‘misery’ or any other woe-filled tale explains why his knowledge of the Blues is ‘somewhat nil’ and he simply finds himself in bed.
“And with an appetite like that you see the woods” – I have two phrases in mind when I hear this line but neither seem to fit the context. Any thoughts?
5 August 2013
Dr Desperate
I expect it’s the one you first thought of, as in “can’t see the wood(s) for the trees”. Having an appetite is supposed to sharpen the senses, allowing one to see things as they really are. I suppose.
Incidentally, there’a an extraneous “Yeah” before the song kicks off (at least on the CD).
6 August 2013
EXXO
I always wondered if there’s a bit in ‘I was a Teenage Werewolf’ or similar movie, where hunger (rather than anger/shock/surprise) triggers an actual or hallucegenic or dream-state return to the werewolf’s predation in the forest. But I could never be arsed to find out.
Of course if the song had been written say last year, this would be a definite reference to a zillion teen wolf, vampire and ‘Hunger Games’ type thingies.
6 August 2013
EXXO
And no sooner had I written that, after about 28 years of not being particularly bothered about this, than I remembered the first dream sequence in ‘American Werewolf’ (1981), where he sees the woods and bites the head off acute little Bambi. Is that based on any scene from an original horror classic like ‘I Was a Teenage Werewolf’ (1957)?
6 August 2013
JUSTMARK
So nothing to do with bears or Popes then? Shame.
6 August 2013
Rubber Faced Irritant
@JUSTMARK you’re never on your own on this site. On the other hand, if you put forward a daft theory then folks won’t be slow to tell you. But here goes…
I assumed the Blues line was a play on the reference to the Blues music genre followed by a reference to the Blues football team. Honved’s official name is Budapest Honved. One of their rivals is MTK Budapest who have won the Hungarian league 23 times and play in blue. Yet the song’s protagonist knows nowt about them since he’s a casual (armchair) Honved aficionado.
Scousers may want to point to a parallel between Norwegian Liverpool fans and their knowledge of their blue rivals but I couldn’t possibly comment.
6 August 2013
Exxo
Honved are red, MTK are blue,
Ferencvaros have a nasty green & white crew.
Your lilac harlequin theory was so wonderfully shrewd
That I don’t mind at all that your latest one seems unlikely to have much verisimilitude.
7 August 2013
Pench
“I’d dreamt about a love affair in far-off Budapest
…
I was feeling ‘Hungary’ both this morning and last night
And with an appetite like that you see the woods”
Isn’t one “wood” what he woke up with after his dream?
10 September 2013
bobby svarc
@Brum: Can you advise me of the correct colour of the shorts and stockings for Honved FC circa 1960s please? I’ve got a couple of repaints to do, I’ve got a good image of the shirt but not of the others, thanks in anticipation.
16 May 2015
peter mcornithologist
@ Bobby. According to my pal, Gyula ( the only Hungarian in Hartlepool), the shorts white and the socks white with one red hoop just below the top.
16 May 2015
peter mcornithologist
@ Bobby. According to my pal, Gyula ( the only Hungarian in Hartlepool), the shorts white and the socks white with one red hoop just below the top.
16 May 2015
brumbiscuit
I did ask my mate in Budapest to look into it, but he couldn’t be bothered. Last emergency Dairy Milk parcel I send him, then.
17 May 2015
Bobby SVARC
Dukla Prague and Honved FC
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab321/Micky_Bates/honv_zpsckr87pky.jpg
18 May 2015
Mattkin-as-was
I was just catching up on last Friday’s 1989 day on 6 Music and I’d got as far as Lamacq. He played this song and said it was released on ACD in ’89.
Imagine my surprise and confusion when I looked on here and saw that it says that was released in 1988. Further checking (the ever-reliable wikipedia) also says 1989.
I can’t imagine such a glaring error would have lasted long on this site, so which is correct please?
5 December 2016
intheshadowoflilly
I was wondering idly in the wake of the Liverpool show about the surfeit of Dukla Prague away kits in evidence. Were there any Honved shirts around? I’d be more inclined to get one of those, especially given their home kit isn’t that dissimilar to that of Saints. I’m pleased to see they’re currently sponsorless though Macron supply the kit.
4 October 2018
paul f
Definitely a couple of Honved shirts at Liverpool.
4 October 2018
hendrix-tattoo
@IntheshadowofLilly- Me and @Jitsu_G were wearing Honved shirts at the Liverpool Gig.
I bought mine from Toffs several years ago.
If you E-mail them they will make the shirt for you.
Ask for the 60’s retro the one Puskas used to wear.
There’s a photo of it on the Twitter page….
4 October 2018
brumbiscuit
I’m off to far-off Budapest next month. The Honved ground is a right pain to get to, so I’ll see if the sport shops there have any kit. Retro wasn’t big when I lived there, as the past wasn’t seen as summat positive. Maybe Viktor has changed that view…
5 October 2018
brumbiscuit
On that note, when the song was written, Budapest probably did seem far away. Being behind the Iron Curtain, and all that. My Manure supporting mate used to follow them in Europe and has some very lengthy guidance notes from the club about do’s and don’t’s when they played Lodz in the 80s. Things like, don’t sell jeans or stuff like that to locals, etc.
5 October 2018
brumbiscuit
And, if I had spelt my name correctly all the time, this would be my 1000th post!
5 October 2018
dR Desperate
The Sportsdirect on Kerepesi út might have them.
5 October 2018
EXXO
The current Honved home strip could almost have been modelled on a 1974-76 So’ton home kit, though obvz. The sleeves and the green bank blob are a disaster. I can imagine that the fans hate it as it features no black. Mrs Exford has several of their more usual black & red striped efforts from recent seasons.
I myself bought reduced stuff for six different outdoor activities from Sports Direct yesterday. I’m particularly pleased with the 62% off heavy duty Muddy Fox chain & padlock for £14.99 which I needed ‘cos my old one was down to one key. Got me poshest ever goalie gloves for 62% off too, and a bargain at the price ‘cos Mrs. Exford packs a stinging drive.
5 October 2018
Brumbiscuit
‘I was a teenage armchair Honvéd fan’ is sung 20 times throughout the song.
I’m trying to think of examples of videos that the song describes. Slick, mid-80s ones. I’m sure Duran Duran made loads. That one on the boat with Simon le Ponce making like a bowsprit with the wind tousling his locks. Perhaps Spandex’s Through the Barricades was actually directly inspired by IWATAHF?
9 December 2018
dr desperate
20, @BB (even if you count the “wham bam” verse)? And talk me through the videos: I hear one verse of fake blues about waking from a dream, one about breakfast and then a typical Blackwell right-angle turn into NME-speak.
9 December 2018