On one strange night at Anfield in September 1992, Liverpool were two down at home to Chesterfield when István Kozma came off the bench at half-time. Soon they were three down, but the Hungarian set up two of the goals as they fought back to draw 4-4.
He played 10 games for Liverpool and never scored, but that night he helped pull his side out of real trouble. A few days later he became the first Hungarian to play in the Premier League, and before any of that he had been a hero at Dunfermline Athletic.
From Pásztó to Újpest
Kozma was born in Pásztó, in northern Hungary, on 3 December 1964. He started out at Salgótarján and joined Újpesti Dózsa in Budapest in 1982.
He was part of the Újpest side that won the Hungarian Cup in 1987, and in 1988 he was named Hungary’s Footballer of the Year. By then he was an international too, having made his debut against Norway in September 1986. He went on to win 40 caps.
The Pars’ record signing
His displays for Újpest against Bordeaux in the UEFA Cup in the autumn of 1988 caught the French club’s eye, and he moved to Bordeaux in 1989. He never played a league game for them. Instead he headed to Scotland, where newly promoted Dunfermline Athletic paid a club-record fee to bring him to East End Park.
It was money well spent. Kozma was a clever, skilful midfielder, and in October 1989 he scored a hat-trick in a 5-1 win over St Mirren, all three goals coming after half-time.
He played 103 games for the Pars and won 13 of his Hungary caps while he was there. In 1990 he was picked for the Scottish League side that played Scotland to mark the League’s centenary, and in 1991 he helped Dunfermline reach the Scottish League Cup final, where they lost to Hibernian.
A surprise move to Anfield
Graeme Souness had seen plenty of him while he was in charge of Rangers, and Kozma had made an impression. In February 1992, with Souness now manager at Liverpool, he paid Dunfermline £300,000 for the Hungarian. It was a signing that took a lot of people by surprise.
Kozma’s debut came on 16 February 1992, when he came off the bench in the second half of a goalless FA Cup fifth-round tie at Ipswich Town. A week later he made his first start, in the league at Norwich City.
He played seven times that season, including both ties against Ipswich on the road to Wembley. Liverpool beat Sunderland 2-0 in the final in May. Kozma didn’t play that day, but he had played his part in getting there.
Cantona’s day at Wembley
The new season opened at Wembley on 8 August 1992 with the Charity Shield against the champions, Leeds United. Kozma came off the bench late on, but the afternoon belonged to Cantona, whose hat-trick won a seven-goal game 4-3 for Leeds.
The night against Chesterfield
Then came 22 September 1992. Liverpool, with a team hit hard by injuries, faced Chesterfield in the first leg of a League Cup second-round tie. Chesterfield were in the Third Division, which with the Premier League newly launched was now the fourth tier of English football. Only 12,533 turned up at Anfield.
Steve Norris and Dave Lancaster had Chesterfield 2-0 up at half-time, and Souness sent Kozma on for Phil Charnock at the break. Three minutes into the second half Lancaster scored his second of the night, and Chesterfield were 3-0 up.
Then Kozma got to work. On 51 minutes he whipped in a low cross from the right and Ronny Rosenthal dived to head it in. Don Hutchison made it 3-2 seven minutes later with his first goal for the club, before Norris restored Chesterfield’s two-goal lead.
Mark Walters pulled another one back, and five minutes from time Mark Wright headed in a Kozma cross to make it 4-4. It was an extraordinary night, and the Hungarian was at the heart of the comeback. Liverpool won the second leg 4-1 at Saltergate a fortnight later.
A first for Hungary
Four days after the Chesterfield game, on 26 September 1992, Kozma came on late in a 3-2 home defeat by Wimbledon. It was his only Premier League appearance, and it made him the first Hungarian to play in the competition. Plenty of Hungarians have followed him into the Premier League since, Dominik Szoboszlai among them.
It was also his last game for Liverpool. Seven of his 10 appearances had come from the bench, and as a Hungarian he needed a work permit to play in England. According to the club’s own history, he hadn’t played enough games to have it renewed, and in the summer of 1993 he went home to Újpest.
Champion in Cyprus and Hungary
In 1995 he joined APOEL in Cyprus, along with fellow Hungary internationals József Kiprich and Kálmán Kovács. In his first season they won the league and cup double, and they won the cup again the following year.
He went back to Újpest in 1997 and won the Hungarian title in 1997-98. Spells at Videoton and Tatabánya followed, and he finished his career in 2001 at Újpest, his fourth spell with the Budapest club.
Coaching and coming home
After retiring he went into coaching, and was part of the coaching staff at Vasas. In the summer of 2013 he became head coach of Újpest, but he left the job that October.
Dunfermline never forgot him. He was back at East End Park for Stewart Petrie’s testimonial in January 2003, and in November 2012 he was inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame.
The link with the town runs in the family. His son, Dominik, was born in Dunfermline in April 1991 and grew up to be a swimmer, representing Hungary at four Olympic Games, in Beijing, London, Rio and Tokyo.
Once a Red
Kozma’s time at Liverpool was short, and it came during a difficult spell for the club. But he was a gifted footballer, a Hungarian Footballer of the Year, a 40-cap international and a Hall of Famer at Dunfermline.
He was also the first of his countrymen to play in the Premier League. And on the night Liverpool needed someone to turn things round against Chesterfield, it was the Hungarian who led the way.
