Flicking a coin-shaped disc around a table-top, Hungarians still adore the simple sport of button football, a game they invented a century ago u.afp.com/wTdQ #AFPSports #Thread
"It's a traditional national sport, like petanque to the French or baseball to the Americans," Attila Becz, who runs a museum dedicated to the game, told AFP u.afp.com/wTdQ
The game is played on a large polished-smooth table depicting a soccer pitch with both players controlling a team of discs with a combination of strategy and dexterity u.afp.com/wTdQ
Players are round and are moved by pressing a pick, finger, or comb on its edge, one turn at a time u.afp.com/wTdQ
In the 1960s and '70s before the spread of computer games 65-year-old Becz played the game as a child and began collecting the button players from the age of eight u.afp.com/wTdQ
Decades later he opened what he calls "the world's only" button football museum in Szigetszentmiklos close to Budapest. Rows of cabinets in the small hall display memorabilia including antique buttons from the 1920s u.afp.com/wTdQ
Buttons were first mass-produced in the 1940s, with player photos stuck on from the 1950s. "It was a golden age for both button football and Hungary, led by Puskas, were at the peak of world football then," said Becz u.afp.com/wTdQ
Although typically played by pensioners, button football retains a cult status among younger generations with about a thousand players in Hungary registered in over 30 clubs according to the game's governing body u.afp.com/wTdQ #AFPSports
📷 by @afpattila
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
#BREAKING 104 police, 30 journalists among injured in Bangladesh clashes: TV
#UPDATE Protesters in Bangladesh set fire to several government buildings during a day of deadly nationwide clashes between students and riot officers, a police statement said.
"The miscreants have already torched, vandalised and carried out destructive activities," on the offices of state broadcaster BTV and the national disaster management agency along with "various" police and government buildings, said the statement, issued after a nationwide internet shutdown
Bangladesh wakes to torched government buildings, internet blackout.
This week's unrest has killed at least 39 people including 32 on Thursday, with the toll expected to rise further after reports of clashes in nearly half of the country's 64 districts
#BREAKING Biden says still considers Xi a 'dictator'
#UPDATE US President Joe Biden said after a summit with Xi Jinping that he still considers the Chinese president a "dictator", after he sparked fury from Beijing by making the comparison earlier this year.
"Well look he is, I mean he's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who's running a country, a Communist country, that's based on a form of government totally different than ours," Biden said at the end of a news conference when a reporter asked if he would still use the term to describe Xi
#BREAKING China will not begin armed conflict with any nation, President Xi Jinping said Wednesday, after a high-stakes summit with US President Joe Biden.
"China does not seek spheres of influence, and will not fight a cold or hot war with any country," he told a gathering of business leaders in San Francisco
#BREAKING Any compromise with Russia will 'destroy' Ukrainian statehood: presidential aide to AFP
#BREAKING Putin says West used grain deal for 'political blackmail'
VIDEO: Ukrainian firefighters battle flames after a Russian strike on Odesa.
Ukraine's president accused Russia of deliberately targeting grain export infrastructure in the city after Moscow ended a landmark deal and lifted security guarantees in the Black Sea
#BREAKING Putin says situation 'difficult' in Rostov in southern Russia
#UPDATE Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday acknowledged a "difficult" situation was unfolding in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, where the Wagner mercenary group has taken control of key military sites in an effort to oust Russian military's top brass.
#UPDATE President Vladimir Putin vowed Saturday he would not allow Russia to slip into civil war, after the leader of the Wagner mercenary force seized a key military headquarters overseeing the offensive in Ukraine.
https://t.co/PDuskr13ZGu.afp.com/izzr