Ladislau Ludovic Bonyhádi (Hungarian: Bonyhádi László; born 25 March 1923 - deceased 13 June 1997 in Miami, Florida, United States) was a Romanian football player of Hungarian ethnicity. During his spell with ITA Arad he was the top-goalscorer of Divizia A twice, in the 1947–48 season he scored 49 goals, which is a record for the Romanian first league.
Club career
Ladislau Bonyhádi was born on 25 March 1923 in Bonyhád, Hungary, starting to play junior level football at age 11 in 1934 at Szegedi, four years later starting to play for the team's senior squad.[1][2] In 1941 he went to play for Kolozsvári AC, his first Nemzeti Bajnokság I match for them being on 31 August when under the guidance of coach Béla Kovács he scored a brace in a 3–0 win over Diósgyőri MÁVAG.[1][2][3] Until the end of the season Bonyhádi scored 22 goals, including four more doubles against Csepel, Nagyváradi AC, Kispest AC and Gamma, also a hat-trick in a 3–3 with Elektromos.[1] In the following season he scored 11 goals, including two doubles in two wins with Salgótarjáni BTC and Újvidéki AC, then in his last season at the club, Bonyhádi scored six league goals, including a brace in a 4–0 win over Elektromos, also together with coach Zoltán Opata he reached the 1943–44 Magyar Kupa final which was lost with 5–3 on aggregate in front of Ferencváros where he scored all three goals of his team.[1][2][4][5] He has a total of 65 appearances with 39 goals scored in the Hungarian league.[1]
In 1946 he went to play for ITA Arad, making his Divizia A debut on 25 August under the guidance of his former coach from Kolozsvári, Zoltán Opata in a 5–1 away win with Libertatea Oradea, by the end of the season scoring 26 goals in 23 matches, being the league's top-goalscorer as the team won the first title in its history.[2][6][7][8] In the following season he helped The Old Lady win The Double, being the league's top-goalscorer once again with 49 goals scored in the 29 games he was used by coach Petre Steinbach, also playing all the minutes under the guidance of coach Gusztáv Juhász in the 3–2 victory against CFR Timișoara from the 1948 Cupa României final.[2][6][7][8][9] With those 49 goals scored, Bonyhádi holds the record of most goals scored in a single Divizia A season by a player, also in all the European championships in that season, only Ferenc Puskás was above him, as he scored 50 goals in the Hungarian league.[2][6][8] In the 1948–49 season he made six appearances in which he scored five goals for UTA, the last two being in a 3–3 with CSCA București, having a total of 54 games in the Romanian league with 80 goals scored in the competition.[2][6]
In 1948, Bonyhádi's father, Geza asked him to come to Budapest because he was very ill and wanted to see his son once more.[2] As Romania's communist regime did not allow anyone to cross the border, Bonyhádi left the country illegally but could not find a way to return as the borders were better guarded and if caught he would have risked jail time.[2] Because of this he had to stay in Hungary, losing the connection with his wife, also because of his "runaway" status he could not find a team to play for, thus retiring at age 24 but he played handball for a while.[2]
Bonyhádi was described in a press report from July 1946 as a strong player who could pass the opponents defense with his physical force, being known to shoot equally powerfully with both legs.[2] He was also known for his speed, at a point reaching 11.2 seconds in a 100 meters sprint, in one year winning a running competition in Arad.[2]
A book about Ladislau Bonyhádi was written by Radu Romănescu called Ludovic Bonyhádi, marele golgeter al Aradului. Povestea neștiută(Ludovic Bonyhádi, the great goalscorer of Arad. The unknown story), which was released on 15 April 2016.[12][13]
