Eduard Karel Alexander de Neve (1 January 1882 or 2 January 1885 – 30 August 1943) was a Dutch

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a forward for

Velocitas Breda Velocitas is the name of: * Velocitas F.C., South African football club *Velocitas 1897, Dutch football club *Treno Alta Velocità Treno Alta Velocità SpA (TAV) is special-purpose entity owned by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (itself owned by Fe ...

HBS Craeyenhout HBS Craeyenhout is a omnisports club based in The Hague that fields teams in association football, cricket and hockey. The club is best known for its football team, which is one of the original clubs of Dutch football, and three times national c ...

and the Netherlands national team.

Biography

De Neve was born in either 1882 or 1885 in

Batavia, Dutch East Indies Batavia was the capital of the Dutch East Indies. The area corresponds to present-day Jakarta, Indonesia. Batavia can refer to the city proper or its suburbs and hinterland, the Ommelanden, which included the much-larger area of the Residen ...

, the son of Eduard Karel Alexander de Neve, a major in the

Royal Dutch East Indies Army The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army ( nl, Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger; KNIL, ) was the military force maintained by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in its colony of the Dutch East Indies, in areas that are now part of Indonesia. The ...

, and Johanna Christina Fokker. His father died when De Neve was 9 or 10 years old, and the family moved to the Netherlands. In

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

, De Neve joined football club Quick. When he joined the Royal Netherlands Army, he started to play football for

, which was affiliated with the Royal Military Academy of the Netherlands. He moved to

HBS Craeyenhout (football club) HBS Craeyenhout is a omnisports club based in The Hague that fields teams in association football, cricket and hockey. The club is best known for its football team, which is one of the original clubs of Dutch football, and three times national ch ...

in 1905, and won the Dutch national football title in his first season back in

. De Neve was part of the first Netherlands national team, which played for the Coupe Van Den Abeele against

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

on 30 April 1905. De Neve made the opening goal of the match after 80 minutes., based on An

own goal An own goal, also called a self goal, is where a player performs actions that result in them or their team scoring a goal on themselves, often resulting in a point for the opposing team, such as when a football player kicks a ball into their own ...

by Dutchman Ben Stom in the 86th minute was the equalizer, and the score was 1–1 after regular time. De Neve scored three goals in extra time, after 106, 117 and 119 minutes, and the final score of the match was 4–1. The Netherlands had won its first match ever, and De Neve had scored all four Dutch goals. He was also in the Dutch squad for a return match in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

two weeks later, on 14 May 1905. The Netherlands won the match 4–0, with De Neve having scored two goals. De Neve played the third and final international match of his career on 13 May 1906, again against Belgium, this time resulting in a 2–3 loss. De Neve had scored six goals in three caps. He would remain the top scorer of the Dutch national team until 21 March 1909, when Edu Snethlage of De Neve's former club Quick scored the opening goal of a match against Belgium, his seventh goal for the Dutch national team. A knee injury and military service in the Dutch East Indies forced De Neve to end his career as a football player in 1907. He was promoted to the rank of

First Lieutenant First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment. The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a ...

on 27 July 1909, and was honourably discharged from the army two months later. In the same year, his brother Gilles was eaten by cannibals on the island of Sumba in the Dutch East Indies. De Neve worked for several Dutch companies and plantations in the Dutch East Indies, but he struggled to get by. In 1913, he was engaged to Daisy Maud Green in the port of

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

, Italy. The two were married on 14 August 1914 in Lubuk Sinapeng in the Dutch East Indies. They had one son, Gilles Pieter Cornelis de Neve, known as 'Gilles Jr.'https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/2.19.255.01/invnr/109572A/file/NL-HaNA_2.19.255.01_109572A_0001 Dutch National Archives file on Gilles Jr in service records. The couple were divorced after 12 years; Daisy Maud and Gilles Jr. moved to The Hague, while De Neve remained in the Dutch East Indies. He published his memoirs, entitled ''Koning Voetbal'' ("King Football"), in 1938, on the occasion of the Dutch East Indies taking part in the

1938 FIFA World Cup The 1938 FIFA World Cup was the third edition of the World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams and was held in France from 4 June until 19 June 1938. Italy defended its title in the final, bea ...

. Eddy de Neve died during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

on 30 August 1943, in a Japanese

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

in the Dutch East Indies. His only child, Gilles Jr., died in the crash of his

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

Supermarine Spitfire in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1944.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Neve, Eddy de 1880s births 1943 deaths Dutch footballers Netherlands international footballers People from Batavia, Dutch East Indies HBS Craeyenhout players Association football forwards Royal Netherlands Army officers Dutch people who died in Japanese internment camps