RateTheRef

The 3-6 defeat at Wembley in 1953 is/was often talked of as England's first defeat by an overseas nation
although that overlooks Eire winning at Goodison in 1949

Also neglected is the return match in Budapest later in the season when Hungary proved that the first match was no fluke

They might be neglected here but in Hungary the matches are shown on M4 (the national sports channel) every anniversary, along with all the Olympic wins, world cup matches etc. Hard to believe 70 years ago Hungary was the top team in the world and was so for a number of years especially when you see the state of the game there now. 

It really fell apart in 1956, after the revolution the National team players all defected along with most of the athletes/handball players/water polo players etc who had been allowed to leave for the Olympics just before the brutal end of the revolution. Very few returned home after those olympics & sport was simply not important anymore. During the USSR occupation sport was the only thing permissible to show any national pride, the defections were a huge embarrassment to the USSR and the retaliation quite brutal. For Hungarians there was no national pride left.  Handball/Water polo recovered well, they are more popular, especially water polo. Football is only really now starting to starting to slowly recover but generations of fans have been lost to foreign leagues. Big strides have been made the past 10 years or so, Mr Orbán is a big footballing man & a government scheme to see all NBI teams with modern stadiums is going well, there has been some new academies but the emphasis has been on new stadia not on improving coaching and the facilities related to that aspect so the academies are lacking. The success in the Euros 2016 has helped and both Vidi & Fradi have made the group stages of the Europa League across the last 2 seasons so it is improving. Hard now though to try and compete with the CL/EL/PL/Serie A/Bundesliga in terms of fan engagement, our youngsters want to see sort of football at home and don't. Our top league is anything between the bottom of L2 & mid championship depending on the day, the team, the referee! There is so much amateurish stuff still, cup games being played midday because there are no floodlights, and 2nd division has only recently started having official 4th officials, a referee manager stuck in the 80's and yet we have the best league president we could wish for. Mr Csányi is ace but too naive & too reliant on reports on progress given to him by people stuck in the past where the reality is progress is too slow and not correctly focused. It's fun watching it grow though & I do love every bit of our league, we just need another few 10's of thousands like me! Haha!

Sorry I derailed!

J.J. Baxter - the elusive first name is still needed for this RAF man (Warrant Officer)
Interestingly listed as Hereford (a typo?) as he joined the F.L. refs list in 56-57 as Royston (Hertford) as stationed at nearby RAF Bassingbourn

The footballfacts.ru web-site sometimes reproduces the relevant pages of match programmes.  The programmes for West Bromwich Albion vs Portsmouth (3 December 1955) and Chelsea vs Preston North End (31 March 1956) both list Mr Baxter as coming from Hereford, but that for Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest (30 April 1958) indicates Bassingbourn, Herts.  Perhaps he was reposted.  I am afraid I can't help with the first name.

An afterthought: sending a serving member of the armed forces to a Warsaw Pact country in 1955 was a very odd thing to do.

Arthur Ellis when appointed to internationals was often allowed to bring his own two lino's.

He often took his younger brother Frank, then operating in the Yorkshire League, as one of them

Frank ran a line at 1964 Charity Shield

Quote from: jad on Wed 29 Apr 2020 13:15

Quote from: John Treleven on Mon 27 Apr 2020 14:40

J.J. Baxter - the elusive first name is still needed for this RAF man (Warrant Officer)
Interestingly listed as Hereford (a typo?) as he joined the F.L. refs list in 56-57 as Royston (Hertford) as stationed at nearby RAF Bassingbourn

The footballfacts.ru web-site sometimes reproduces the relevant pages of match programmes.  The programmes for West Bromwich Albion vs Portsmouth (3 December 1955) and Chelsea vs Preston North End (31 March 1956) both list Mr Baxter as coming from Hereford, but that for Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest (30 April 1958) indicates Bassingbourn, Herts.  Perhaps he was reposted.  I am afraid I can't help with the first name.

An afterthought: sending a serving member of the armed forces to a Warsaw Pact country in 1955 was a very odd thing to do.

Baxter was not the ref for the west brom v pompey match in 55, it was r.e tarratt [horsham]

Baxter's first name was James [Jim] report in Daily Herald 14 Oct 1957, lists him at a court case after fans threw objects at him in reprisal for one of his decisions at the Bournemouth v Southend match.

Probably the famous cushions! In the old main stand we had wooden seats and you could rent a cushion for them - they were like a 1 foot x 1 foot 2 inch thick brick, heavy but launched right could go quite a distance and they blimmin hurt when you got hit with them! In the good old days instead of shouting abuse at referees when a decision was deemed dreadful the main stand would launch cushions en masse! Being little and sat right at the front of that stand I had a fair few bruises over the years from those darn things! I have one hanging on my balcony that was rescued from a cupboard when the old ground was being torn down.

I should perhaps have specified that in the first two games I mentioned W.O. Baxter was a linesman.

Sat 22.11.1986

Div 1

Nott'm F. v Wimbledon

Peter Tyldesley (Stockport) limped off at half time to be replaced by senior line D. Wragg (Ibstock, Leics)

Paul Durkin replaced Dermot Gallagher 28 minutes (FRA v BUL)