BUDAPEST: Gyula Grosics, one of the great black-clad goalkeepers of the immediate post-war era, has died aged 88.

Grosics was first-choice keeper for the legendary Hungarian team of the early 1950s, winning Olympic gold in Helsinki in 1952, inflicting a double humiliation on England but then losing the 1954 World Cup Final 3-2 to West Germany.

Nicknamed the Black Panther he stayed in Hungary – unlike team-mates such as Ferenc Puskas, Sandor Kocsis and Zoltan Czibor – and thus also featured at the 1958 and 1962 World Cups.

Grosics, who had a number of tangles with the authorities, played much of his later career with Tatabanya.

The only survivor of the Magical Magyars is the right back, Jeno Buzanzsky who is 89.

############