Full name | Magyar Testgyakorlók Köre Budapest Futball Club |
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Founded | 16 November 1888 |
Ground | Hidegkuti Nándor Stadium |
Capacity | 5,322 |
Chairman | Tamás Deutsch |
Manager | Vaszilisz Teodoru |
League | OTP Bank Liga |
2015–16 | OTP Bank Liga, 4th |
Website | Club home page |
Magyar Testgyakorlók Köre Budapest Futball Club or shortly MTK is a football club from Budapest, Hungary. The team plays in the first division of the Hungarian League. The club's colours are blue and white. As one of the most successful Hungarian football clubs, MTK has won the Hungarian League 23 times and the Hungarian Cup 12 times. The club has also won the Hungarian Super Cup 2 times. In 1955, as Vörös Lobogó SE, they became the first Hungarian team to play in the European Cup and in 1964 they finished as runners-up in the European Cup Winners' Cup after losing to Sporting Clube de Portugal in the final. The club founded the Sándor Károly Football Academy in 2001. The Academy also has a partnership agreement with British club Liverpool F.C..
About a dozen sport-loving citizens decided on 16 November 1888 in a cafe in Budapest to form the Magyar Testgyakorlók Köre (Circle of Hungarian Fitness Activists). A number of its founding members were aristocrats and members of the capital's Jewish community. The colours of the club became blue and white, and it had 31 members by the end of its inaugural year. The club's first divisions offered sporting possibilities only for fencing and gymnastics. As football was spreading far and wide in Hungary also the club established its football division on 12 March 1901. The first public football match of the Blues was a 0–0 draw against Budapesti TC, which later became Hungarian champions in 1901 and 1902. MTK started to play football in the 2nd league in 1902, but a year later the club got the chance to play in the first league. The first year brought the club a 3rd place and it did not take long for the Blues to win the first championship, which happened a year later in 1904.
MTK won their first Hungarian League title in the 1904 Nemzeti Bajnokság I season. They won 11 matches and drew three times and lost only twice.