Blood bath of Melbourne; Russian: Кровь в бассейне, romanized: Krov' v basseyne, lit.

The semi-final match took place on 6 December 1956 against the background of the recent Hungarian Revolution, and saw Hungary defeat the USSR 4–0.

[1] Tensions were at an all-time high between the competing teams; the Soviet armed forces had violently suppressed the Hungarian Revolution just weeks before.

Most of the Revolutionaries consisted of civilians, a majority factory workers and students, who constructed Molotov cocktails against the formal armed forces of the USSR.

[2] The players only learned of the true extent of the uprising and the subsequent crackdown after arriving in Australia and they were all anxious for news of friends and family.

[3] The match was played in front of a partisan crowd bolstered with expatriate Hungarians[4] as well as Australians and Americans, two of the Soviet Union's Cold War opponents.

Many angry spectators jumped onto the concourse beside the water, shook their fists, shouted abuse and spat at the Russians.

[1][16][17][18][19] In 2006, for the 50th anniversary of the attempted Hungarian Revolution, the documentary Freedom's Fury, produced by Kristine Lacey and Thor Halvorssen, told the story of the match.

[21] The documentary was narrated by the Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz, who, as a teenager, had been coached by Ervin Zádor.

Also in 2006, a feature film about the match was released, entitled Children of Glory (Hungarian title: Szabadság, szerelem, meaning "Freedom, love", after the lines of Sándor Petőfi, the martyred poet of the 1848–49 revolution[citation needed]).

The movie shows the Hungarian Revolution through the eyes of a player on the water polo team and a young woman who is one of the student leaders.