Blood in the Water

The “Blood in the Water” polo match took place on December 6, 1956 at the olympic games in Melbourne.  The water polo match was during the time of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.  Hungary went on to defeat the USSR 4 to 0, which only added to the tension of the political situation that was unfolding.

The match was named “Blood in the Water” because of a Hungarian player named Ervin Zádor.  During the last two minutes of the game, he come out of the water with a bloody eye after being punched by Soviet player Valentin Prokopov.

Prokopov struck Zádor, which gave him a big cut under his eye. Zádor got out of the pool and saw that the crowd was very upset. Many angry spectators jumped onto the pool deck to yell and spit at the Russians. To avoid a riot, police showed up and told the crowd to go away. One minute of the match remained when things were calm enough to continue.

The Hungarian and Soviet water polo teams were not friendly to begin the match because the Soviets had taken advantage of their political power in Hungary to learn from the Hungarian team, who were the previous Olympic champions.

On October 23, 1956, a group of students started a demonstration at the University of Budapest that came close to becoming a riot against the Soviet government’s control of Budapest. At the time, many people believed that Hungary was going to part ways from USSR control. 

To counter this demonstration, the Soviet Union sent tanks into Hungary and from November 4 to November 10 Soviet forces began suppressing the demonstration with air strikes, artillery attacks, and the presence of tanks and infantry on the ground.