Gyula Grosics was born 100 years today

Gyula Grosics started playing football in his hometown, his first professional club being Dorogi Bányász. He joined MATEOSZ in 1947 before moving to Budapesti Honvéd in 1950. In November 1954, he was banned from football for 13 months for non-football reasons and was then forced to continue his career at provincial club Tatabánya, where he ended his professional playing career. He was a four-time Hungarian champion with Honvéd and played in a total of 390 top-flight matches.

Grosics also enjoyed a fine international career, playing 86 times for the Hungarian national team between 1947 and 1962, including a period of four years when the 'Golden Team' didn't lose a single official international between 1950 and 1954. Honours poured his way, including Olympic football gold at the 1952 Helsinki Games, Central European International Cup victory in 1953, and a silver medal for reaching the 1954 World Cup final in Switzerland. He played in three World Cups (1954, 1958 and 1962), and was in goal for the 'Match of the 20th Century', Hungary's legendary 6-3 defeat of England at Wembley.

Journalists selected him for world XI of the year six times and he was nominated for the Golden Ball four times, on all four occasions of which he finished amongst the top ten. In 1999 he was voted one of the ten best goalkeepers in the world ever, in 1952 - the year of Olympic victory - he was declared Sportsman of the Year, and in 1959, he became Hungarian Footballer of the Year.

The 'Black Panther', as he was nicknamed for his agility and trademark black goalkeeper kit, later worked as a coach for Tatabánya, Salgótarján, KSI and in Kuwait, the latter as a specialist supervisor for college and university clubs before fulfilling the role of president at Hungarian club Volán SC for eighteen years and remaining an active football in Old Boys' matches. In 1995, both the IOC and the MOB awarded him the Olympic Order of Merit. Grosics was the penultimate member of the Magical Magyars to pass away on June 13, 2014.

On Wednesday morning, the 'Grosics 100' exhibition and the Grosics Commemorative Year programme of events were unveiled at the Gyula Grosics Primary School, at which former national team captain Imre Gellei represented the Hungarian Football Federation.

The former great was also commemorated that afternoon when a memorial plaque was unveiled in St Stephen's Basilica in memory of Gyula Grosics and Holy Mass was held, where former MLSZ vice-president Sándor Berzi recalled the Grosics' wonderful career and human greatness on behalf of the Federation.