Vilmos Kertész

Vilmos Kertész, typically called Kertész II, was a legendary player in the early decades of Hungarian football. He played initially as a right winger and later moved to the position of right back. His brothers Gyula (Kertész I) and Adolf (Kertész III) were also capped. Vilmos played almost his entire career – from 1908-24 – for MTK in 257 games and scored 53 goals. With him on the team MTK was four times runner-up in Hungarian championships (1910-13) before they won nine consecutive titles (1914-24 with a gap of two years during World War I) and five Hungarian cups (1910, 1911, 1912, 1914, and 1923). After a break of one year, he added one season (1925/26) in the colours of Nemzeti SC.

In 1909, Kertész rose from MTK’s third team to the national team within a few months. In total, he represented Hungary in 47 international matches until 1924 and scored 11 goals mainly as a right winger. He was an unused reserve for the 1912 Olympic Games, where the Hungarian team placed fifth as winner of the consolation round. In the 1924 Olympic football tournament he was again part of the Hungarian team and again he was an unused reserve when Hungary was eliminated by Egypt in round two.

After his active career he started coaching the clubs Ékszerész SC and Budapesti Vasas SC (1926–30) in Hungary and the Romanian club Ripensia Timişoara (1931-32). In 1932, he went abroad working for teams in Egypt including Hellenic Alexandria and emigrated to Australia in 1950.

Kertész married Margit Hoffmann in 1914. After they divorced he remarried his second wife, Erzsébet Glück, in 1923. In Budapest, he was the owner of a sporting goods shop.