The "Blood in the Water" match ( lit. Blood bath of Melbourne; ) was a water polo match between Hungary and the USSR at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. The match took place on 6 December 1956 against the background of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and saw Hungary defeat the USSR 4–0. The name was coined after Hungarian player Ervin Zádor emerged during the last two minutes with blood pouring from above his eye after being punched by Soviet player Valentin Prokopov.
The ‘Blood in the Water’ Olympic match held in the Cold War Era between Hungary and the USSR was considered a showdown. This took place on December 6, 1956 as a part of the 1956 Summer Olympics. Tensions were at an all time high between the competing teams due to the fact that, just weeks before the match, Soviet troops along with their tanks and warplanes violently shut down the Hungarian Revolution. Most of the Revolutionaries consisted of civilians, a majority factory workers and students, who constructed Molotov cocktails against the enormous military power that was the USSR.
The basics of water polo, according to swimming.org are: “There are goals at each end of the pool and the winner of the game is the team that scores the most goals by getting the ball between the posts.” Interestingly, this sport can prove to be brutal. There are several types of fouls that can be called in water polo. The first are called technical fouls. These are minor fouls that are considered non-violent. Major fouls are the second type of recognized fouls. These involve things like pushing, pulling, and sinking another player. These are considered brutal fouls with malicious intent. Referees present at these sporting matches can only call what they see. This means that fouls that occur underwater go unrecognized. Therefore, injuring another player, although illegal, doesn’t stop the players from doing it.
The famous image defines this showdown of a water polo match. Ervin Zádor was the man famously pictured with blood streaming from his eye. The match was extremely high in intensity, and even the viewers felt the adrenaline. Throughout the match players would use any form of violence they could manage whenever the players of opposing teams came in contact. Zador’s injury took place in the closing minutes of the match. Chaos ensued with the crowd booing the Russians. Ultimately Hungary won with a score of 4-0.
Background
Tensions were already high between the Hungarian and Soviet water polo teams, as the Soviets had taken advantage of their political control of Hungary to study and copy the training methods and tactics of the Olympic champion Hungarians.
Then, on 23 October 1956, a demonstration by students of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics escalated into an uprising against the government in Budapest. On 1 November, Soviet tanks began rolling into Hungary and from 4 to 10 November forces began suppressing the uprising with air strikes, artillery bombardments, and tank-infantry actions.
At the time, the Hungarian water polo team was in a mountain training camp above Budapest. They were able to hear the gunfire and see smoke rising. The players were the defending Olympic champions; with the Summer Olympics in Melbourne two months away, they were moved into Czechoslovakia to avoid being caught in the revolution. The players only learned of the true extent of the uprising and the subsequent crackdown after arriving in Australia and they were all anxious for news of friends and family.
By the start of the Olympics, the uprising had been suppressed and many players saw the Olympics as a way to salvage pride for their country. "We felt we were playing not just for ourselves but for our whole country", said Zádor after the match. The match was played in front of a partisan crowd bolstered with expatriate Hungarians as well as Australians and Americans, two of the Soviet Union's Cold War opponents.
The match
The Hungarians had created a strategy before the game to taunt the Russians, whose language they had studied in school. In the words of Ervin Zádor: "We had decided to try and make the Russians angry to distract them."
From the beginning, kicks and punches were exchanged. At one point, a punch thrown by Hungarian captain Dezső Gyarmati was caught on film. Meanwhile, Zádor scored two goals to the crowd's cheers of ("Go Hungarians!").