K.N.V.B. Bondselftal Tour to the Dutch West Indies

In the summer of 1954 a representative team from the Dutch FA (K.N.V.B.) toured the Dutch colonies in the West Indies, playing 5 matches. This Bondselftal was not the official Dutch national team (that would not visit De West until six years later) but all but one of the players (the exception being the reserve 'keeper) earned official international caps before and/or after the trip. Note that the team did not include any Dutch professional players: the strongest Dutch footballers played abroad, mostly in France, but were not eligible for Oranje as the K.N.V.B. remained staunchly amateur (during the trip, it was decided to allow semi-professionalism in the Eerste Klasse for 1954/55, but only after the merger with the rebel professional organisation N.B.V.B. at the end of November 1954 Oranje would field the best Dutch players).

Results Bondselftal

25- 7-1954 Willemstad   Curaçao      2-0 Netherlands [HT: 1-0]
                          [Gomez 29, Bernardina 54]
27- 7-1954 Oranjestad   Aruba        2-2 Netherlands [HT: 2-0]
                          [Rodriquez 26, Kemp 40; Bleijenberg 65,
                           Brooijmans 87]
29- 7-1954 Willemstad   Curaçao      2-1 Netherlands [HT: 2-1] [*]
                          [Hato 22pen, Adoptie 43; Van Beurden 27]
 1- 8-1954 Paramaribo   Surinam      3-4 Netherlands [HT: 3-3] [!]
                          [Kogelmans 6, Leo Rack 13, Mijnals sr. 44pen;
                           Van der Gijp 1, Luiten 20, Van Melis 27,
                           Van der Kuil 75]
 3- 8-1954 Paramaribo   Surinam      0-2 Netherlands [HT: 0-2]
                          [Bleijenberg 17, Luiten 40]

[*] Curaçao keeper Hato had already scored from a penalty against Feijenoord
    in a tournament in Willemstad in 1946;
    the second goal for Curaçao is also given as an own goal by Wiersma,
    who deflected Adoptie's shot.
[!] Surinam included Humphrey Mijnals, who would later earn 3 caps for
    the Netherlands (all in 1960, his last against Surinam on 3 July).

Total Record Bondselftal:    5   2  1  2   9- 9   5

Scorers: 2 Bleijenberg, Luiten
         1 Van Beurden, Brooijmans, Van der Gijp, Van der Kuil, Van Melis

Squad Bondselftal

Pos. Player (Club)                         Official Caps (Goals)
                                       before trip  after trip   total
GK   Lieuwe Steiger (P.S.V.)               6 ( 0)     1 ( 0)     7 ( 0)
GK   Jan van de Wint (V.S.V.)              none       none       none
DF   Joop Odenthal (Haarlem)              11 ( 0)     2 ( 0)    13 ( 0)
DF   Frans Tebak (Eindhoven)              10 ( 0)     none      10 ( 0)
DF   Kees Kuijs (Haarlem)                  none      43 ( 0)    43 ( 0)
DF   Roel Wiersma (Donar)                  none      53 ( 0)    53 ( 0)
MF   Jan Klaassens (V.V.V.)                8 ( 0)    49 ( 1)    57 ( 1)
MF   Rinus Terlouw (Sparta)               34 ( 0)     none      34 ( 0)
MF   Hans van der Hoek (Feijenoord)        2 ( 0)     none       2 ( 0)
MF   Loek Biesbrouck (R.C.H.)             19 ( 0)     none      19 ( 0)
MF   Jan Brooijmans (R.A.C.)               none       2 ( 0)     2 ( 0)
FW   Cor Luiten (D.O.S.)                   3 ( 0)     1 ( 0)     4 ( 0)
FW   Wim van der Gijp (Emma)               1 ( 0)     none       1 ( 0)
FW   Coen Dillen (P.S.V.)                  1 ( 1)     4 ( 3)     5 ( 4)
FW   Noud van Melis (Eindhoven)           11 (12)     2 ( 3)    13 (15)
FW   Wim Bleijenberg (Rigtersbleek)        3 ( 0)     none       3 ( 0)
FW   Rinus Bennaars (D.O.S.K.O.)          10 ( 2)     5 ( 0)    15 ( 2)
FW   Max van Beurden (B.V.V.)              5 ( 1)     none       5 ( 1)
FW   Piet van der Kuil (V.S.V.)           10 ( 1)    30 ( 8)    40 ( 9)

Total                                    134 (17)   192 (15)   326 (32)
   average by player, rounded:             7 ( 1)    10 ( 1)    17 ( 2)

NB: before leaving for De West, a test match between an A-team (Steiger;
    Wiersma, Tebak; Klaassens, Terlouw, Biesbrouck; Dillen, Brooijmans,
    Van Melis, Van der Gijp, Van der Kuil) and a B-team (Van de Wint;
    Odenthal, Kuijs; Van Tielrooy (V.S.V.), Van der Hoek, Bennaars;
    Luppens (Stormvogels), Van Beurden, Bleijenberg, Snoeks (Stormvogels),
    Luiten; Van Tielrooy, Luppens and Snoeks were guest players) was held
    on 18 July in Heemstede; the B-team won 3-1.

As can be seen, 4 out of 19 players were uncapped before the trip; half of these, defenders Kuijs and Wiersma, had impressive Oranje careers afterwards.
Among the 15 players capped before the trip, nearly half (7) would not return to the full team afterwards; Luiten and Steiger both played only one more official match after the trip, vs. Belgium on 24 October 1954; that was the last match before professional players would return to Oranje.
Only 5 players collected more caps after the trip than before, but due to the long national team careers of Kuijs, Wiersma and Klaassens, the average number of caps of the squad members after the trip is higher than that before the trip.
At the time of the trip, four of the squad members (Biesbrouck, Bennaars, Brooijmans and Wiersma) played for lower level clubs: R.C.H. had just been relegated from the Eerste Klasse (as reigning Dutch champions, a unique occurrence in the football history of the Netherlands), D.O.S.K.O. and R.A.C. played in the Tweede Klasse in district Zuid I and Donar were part of the Derde Klasse in district West I.

About this document

Sources included: [VeV 06], Roonba Forum, newspapers Utrechts Nieuwblad, De Waarheid

Prepared and maintained by Neil Morrison and Karel Stokkermans for the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation

Authors: Neil Morrison and Karel Stokkermans (karel@rsssf.com)
Last updated: 4 Nov 2011