Bertus de Harder

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Bertus de Harder (1955)

Johannes Lambertus de Harder (born January 14, 1920 in 's-Gravenhage , † December 8, 1982 in Jeumont , France ; also written Berthus de Harder in France ) was a Dutch football player and later coach . The national player was one of the first Dutch to play as a professional footballer abroad. With Girondins de Bordeaux he became French champion in 1950 .

Club career

De Harder's career began at the age of 13 with the Hague club Transvaal , where he played with his older brother Karel. Transvaal belonged to the Nederlandse Arbeiders Sport Bond , the workers' sports federation ; For the De Harder brothers, the reason for joining this association was not the socialist background, but the low membership fee. He came to VUC Den Haag in 1937 through Triomph and Wilsonmeters . The left wing drew attention to himself in his first game for the first division team: he scored a goal against Go Ahead , in which he “tunneled” the opposing goalkeeper Leo Halle , who was also the keeper of the national team's goal at the time. He developed into a goal getter and scored 46 goals for VUC in three seasons. In the 1938/39 season he was the top scorer in Divisie West 2 .

In 1944 VUC became regional champions with him and reached the final round of the Dutch championship. The Hague won the first leg against De Volewijckers from Amsterdam 2-0; in the second leg, however, there was a bitter 1: 5 defeat. De Harder appeared absent from the game on April 30, 1944. The reasons for this have never really been clarified. Allegedly there had previously been a speech from the club chairman to De Harder in the cabin, in which it should have been about a drinking binge the previous evening. There were also rumors that he had been bribed. The quiet De Harder did not know how to defend himself against the attacks, reacted with a sulk and let his club hang. In May 1945 - before that, due to occupation law, there was no meeting - the association decided to expel it; a little later, however, the sentence was changed to a two and a half year ban. On January 20, 1947, he returned to the team and scored all four goals in the 4-0 win against Heracles Almelo .

In 1949 he played with the B national team in Bordeaux against the French B selection. He was noticed by Girondins officials. The club had just been promoted back to Division 1 and made De Harder a contract offer. In his first season , “Berthuus” became French champions with the newcomer, not least thanks to the Dutchman's 21 goals. Like all his teammates, he then became an honorary citizen of Bordeaux.

In the season 1951/52 he went through a difficult time. His wife Maria, whom he married in 1940, died and left him with four minor children. But he recovered and played such good football that the trade magazine L'Équipe named him the best player of the season. In addition, de Harder was the second best league scorer this season with 25 hits. During this time he received his nickname le divin chauve (Dutch de goddelijke kale , German "the divine bald head").

After five successful seasons in the south of France - among other things, he had reached the cup final with the Girondins in 1952 - he returned to the Netherlands, where professionalism had finally found its way in 1954. He played in the 1954/55 season for Holland Sport in the top division, and also began the following season with this club. When he was sent off for insulting the referee in a game and was suspended again - after a dubious decision he had ironically certified the referee that he had “whistled great” - he decided to return to Bordeaux. There he ended his active career in 1957, in which he scored 76 goals in 167 first division games for the Girondins.

National team

Harder played in the Oranje Elftal for the first time at the age of 17 . On May 21, 1938, like Freek van der Veen , he made his debut in Amsterdam alongside experienced national players such as Puck van Heel , Wim Anderiesen and Frank Wels in front of 50,000 spectators. The Netherlands lost 3-1 to Scotland , but his performance convinced the selection committee to appoint him to the squad for the World Cup in France . Although the team was eliminated in the second round of the World Cup with a 3-0 defeat in Le Havre against Czechoslovakia , Harder had now conquered a regular place; until no more international matches could be played due to the war , he was only not used in one match . In the nine games he scored three times; He marked two of the hits on April 21, 1940 in a 4-2 win over Belgium in the last international match before the occupation .

After the war he was no longer allowed to play in the selection because of his club suspension, later as a professional in France. Only after he returned from France did the now 35-year-old return to three missions; he made his last game on May 19, 1955 in a 4-1 win against Switzerland .

Two years earlier he was involved in the Watersnoodwedstrijd , the unofficial benefit game for the victims of the 1953 flood disaster . A selection of Dutch international professionals, including de Harder Bram Appel and Rinus Schaap , played against a French selection and won 2-1, De Harder and Schaap scored the two goals for the Netherlands. His international career, which was limited by World War II, suspension and professional football, is out of proportion to his abilities, writes Marc Kooijmans.

After the active time

After completing his career as a player, De Harder coached several amateur clubs in France in Angoulême (1957-60), Jarny , Mulhouse (1962-64), Saint-Louis , Biach and Jeumont. Although he would have liked to go back to The Hague, he stayed in France because his second wife Jitske felt very comfortable there. In Jeumont he was last administrator of the community sports park when he died in 1982 at the age of 62 after a heart attack.

Palmarès

Team successes

In the club

With the national team

Personal achievements

literature

  • Piet van der Eijk, Bertus de Harder. Het levensverhaal van de Goddelijke Kale , Amsterdam 1994

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Girondins de Bordeaux website ( Memento of the original of November 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.girondins.com
  2. ↑ "Het motief om lid te been was niet in Socialist sympathies, maar in de position contributie." Portrait of the Nederlandse Instituut voor Geschiedenis , spotted on 5 September 2008
  3. ↑ "Toen De Harder voorlopig werd, omdat hij een Scheidsrechte had beledigd - op ironische toon had hij 'prima gefloten' gezegd - besloot hij in September 1955 terug te keren naar Bordeaux ..." Portrait at the Nederlandse Instituut voor Geschiedenis , viewed on September 5, 2008
  4. ↑ Numbers from Stéphane Boisson / Raoul Vian: Il était une fois le Championnat de France de Football. Tous les joueurs de la première division de 1948/49 à 2003/04. Neofoot, Saint-Thibault o. J.
  5. ↑ "Zijn beperkte interlandcarrière Staat door oorlog, schorsing en zijn keus voor beroepsvoetbal niet in verhouding tot zijn capaciteiten." Portrait at the Nederlandse Instituut voor Geschiedenis , viewed on September 5, 2008
  6. ↑ a b French club coach , website rsssf.com , viewed September 6, 2008
  7. ↑ International match statistics at voetbalstats.nl
personal data
SURNAME Harder, Bertus de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harder, Johannes Lambertus de; Harder, Berthus de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH The hague
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1982
Place of death Jeumont , France