FourFourTwo September 2019 107Are you still glad you signed for Wolves?
Apart from the injury, I wouldn’t have missed
the adventure for the world. Now and then,
I still go back to Wolverhampton, and make it
a kind of city tour. I sleep in the hotel where
I stayed for three months at the time. I go to
the same restaurant where I was always ate
Indian food. The man who was looking after
the post in the stadium back then is still there.
He’s 85 now, but the club cherishes people
like that – they’ll never send them away.
Do you still get recognised there?
Everyone is always happy to see me, then
they’ll shout, “Hey, Wolfman!” They open the
museum for you, they like to present you to
other people. You have to go to the club shop
and the business club. During matches, they
put you in the directors’ box, not somewhere
high up in the stands. Sometimes I have to
pinch myself, like when I walk along a corridor
and see all the picture frames with legends.
I’m among them, too. That always gives me
goosebumps. Some people might think I’m
exaggerating, but it feels like coming home.“I TORE MY CRUCIATE
LIGAMEnT In MY RIGHT
KnEE – I DOn’T CRY
OFTEn, BUT I DID THEn”
TEAMS
Sparta Rotterdam
Groningen
Feyenoord
Wolves
VVV Venlo
Hapoel Ashkelon
Helmond Sport
Zwart-Wit ’28
Netherlandswas a penalty. I believe only the legendary
Billy Wright had ever scored a hat-trick for
Wolves as a defender, so it meant something.
It’s a milestone in the history of a club. That
game led to my popularity increasing a lot.
Then you had a major injury setback – tell
us what happened...
Graham Taylor had been given the task to
win promotion to the Premier League, and we
were on schedule until the moment I tore my
cruciate ligament in my right knee against
Sunderland in March. That was an incredible
blow. I don’t cry often, but I did then. In the
dressing room, I phoned my father and he
travelled to England the same night. The next
day, we flew back for surgery in Rotterdam.
Over the years, I had become a big player by
overcoming big injuries time and time again,
so I did hope to be back for the play-offs.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Mentally,
that was my toughest injury. I was in my
prime, I felt at home at Wolves and we were
convinced we’d compete for prizes. Looking
back, it became a fiasco.
What was it like for you when you came
back into the squad?
Wolves had just missed out on promotion,
Graham Taylor had to leave and what you
often see in England is that the new manager
will bring in his own players. After my rehab,
I did play a few times under Mark McGhee, but
I was in and out of the team. I’d always been
a regular – now every Friday I had to wait and
see whether I was in the squad. That was very
difficult to accept. But I have to admit that
I never reached my old level again. Yes, I still
played for three seasons after that on one leg
in Holland. There you’re able to do that, but in
England that simply doesn’t work.
How frustrating was it that you weren’t able
to secure promotion to the Premier League
during your time there?
In all the interviews given by managers from
our rivals at the time, you could read that we
missed out on promotion because of my
absence. In a relatively short amount of time,
I’d won quite a bit of respect. That makes me
really proud. If I hadn’t sustained that injury,
perhaps I would have played in England for
a few more seasons. Maybe I would have
continued to live there. I actually never ask
myself those ‘What if?’ questions. But this
time I was often thinking, ‘Damn it, why me?’
That feeling has gnawed at me for years.