Hans Kraay Jr. (born 22 December 1959) is a Dutch former professional

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 ...

turned coach and television presenter.

Biography

Kraay Jr. was born in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...

on 22 December 1959, the son of fellow footballer

Hans Kraay Sr. Hans Kraay (14 October 1936 – 27 October 2017) was a Dutch professional footballer who played as a defender. Subsequently, he became well known for his football management skills as well as analysis of matches on Dutch television. Biography ...

Career

Kraay played professionally in the Netherlands for AZ,

SBV Excelsior Excelsior Rotterdam, commonly known as Excelsior, is a Dutch professional football club based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. They play in the Eredivisie, the top tier of Dutch football from the 2022–23 season following promotion. The club was found ...

, HFC Haarlem,

NAC Breda NAC Breda (), often simply known as NAC, is a Dutch professional football club, based in Breda, Netherlands. NAC Breda play in the Rat Verlegh Stadium, named after their most important player, Antoon 'Rat' Verlegh. They play in the Eerste Divi ...

RKC Waalwijk RKC Waalwijk () is a Dutch professional football club based in Waalwijk, that is currently competing in the Eredivisie. Its name is derived from 'Rooms Katholieke Combinatie' ('Roman Catholic Combination' in Dutch) and was established as a merger ...

Helmond Sport Helmond Sport is a professional association football club based in the city of Helmond, North Brabant, Netherlands, that competes in the Eerste Divisie, the second tier of the Dutch football league system. The club was founded on 27 June 1967, as ...

, FC Eindhoven,

De Graafschap VBV De Graafschap () is a professional football club from Doetinchem, Netherlands, playing in the Eerste Divisie, the second tier of Dutch football. It was formed on 1 February 1954 and they play their home games at the De Vijverberg stadium. ...

FC Dordrecht Football Club Dordrecht, or simply FC Dordrecht () is a professional Dutch association football club based in Dordrecht, a city in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. They currently compete in the Eerste Divisie, ...

Telstar Telstar is the name of various communications satellites. The first two Telstar satellites were experimental and nearly identical. Telstar 1 launched on top of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the fi ...

and

FC Den Bosch FC Den Bosch () is a football club from 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. They were founded 18 August 1965, as FC Den Bosch/BVV. They are the successor of BVV (1906) and Wilhelmina (1890). Their stadium is called 'De Vliert', an 8,500 all-seater. R ...

, in the

North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League may refer to: *North American Soccer League (1968–1984), a former Division I league *North American Soccer League (2011–2017) The North American Soccer League (NASL) was a professional men's soccer league b ...

for the Edmonton Drillers, Edmonton Eagles and the

San Jose Earthquakes The San Jose Earthquakes are an American professional soccer team based in San Jose, California. The Earthquakes compete as a member club of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). Originally as the San Jose Clash, the franchise ...

, in England for

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

, and in Belgium for Sint-Niklase. He also served as head coach of Dutch amateurs

FC Lienden FC Lienden is a football club from Lienden, Netherlands. The club was established on 1 August 1930. History In 2010s, the club saw a rise through the Dutch football pyramid, under the guidance of former professional player Hans Kraay Jr., wh ...

from 2004 to 2011, leading the club from

Tweede Klasse The Tweede Klasse ( en, Second Class) is the seventh tier of football in the Netherlands and the fifth tier of Dutch amateur football. The league is divided into 22 divisions, 10 played on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. Each division consists of 14 t ...

Topklasse The Derde Divisie (; en, Third Division), formerly known as Topklasse (; en, Top Class), is the fourth tier of football in the Netherlands, which had its inaugural season as a third tier in 2010–11 and as a fourth tier in 2016–17. The league ...

and making it nationally known within Dutch football. In November 2011 he was appointed head coach of Topklasse club SVZW. One month later, it was revealed his appointment head coach of

JVC Cuijk JVC Cuijk is a Dutch association football club from Cuijk Cuijk (; dialect: ''Kuuk'') is a town in the northeastern part of the province of North Brabant, Netherlands. It is the successor of a Roman settlement on the west bank of the Meuse, 13& ...

, effective from July 2012. He left after two seasons in charge to become new head coach of

Hoofdklasse The Vierde Divisie, formerly known as Hoofdklasse () is the second-highest league of amateur football in the Netherlands, and the fifth tier in general. Background The league is divided into two sections: Saturday and Sunday. This is a result of ...

club DOVO, effective from July 2014. Kraay presented numerous television shows on Dutch television, most notably for

SBS 6 SBS6 is a Dutch free-to-cable commercial TV channel and is a part of Talpa TV, formerly known as SBS Broadcasting B.V. and now owned by Talpa Network. Other channels of the group in the Netherlands are Net5, Veronica, and SBS9. History SBS st ...

, for which he worked from 1997 till 2015. Between 2002 and 2015 he was the presenter of ''Lachen om Home Video's'', on

, a compilation program of funny home videos. A part of the videos were taken from

America's Funniest Home Videos ''America's Funniest Home Videos'', also called ''America's Funniest Videos'' (abbreviated as ''AFV''), is an American video clip television series on American Broadcasting Company, ABC, based on the Japanese variety show ''Kato-chan Ken-chan Gok ...

. In 2003 he had a hit record in The Netherlands reaching #3 at the

Dutch Top 40 The Dutch Top 40 ( nl, Nederlandse Top 40) is a weekly music chart compiled by ''Stichting Nederlandse Top 40''. It started as a radio program titled "Veronica Top 40", on the offshore station Radio Veronica in 1965. It remained "The Veronica ...

with ''Er zal d'r altijd eentje winnen'', a song recorded with fans of various Dutch football clubs as a reaction to the violent meeting at Beverwijk of hooligans of

AFC Ajax Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax (), also known as AFC Ajax, Ajax Amsterdam, or simply Ajax, is a Dutch professional football club based in Amsterdam, that plays in the , the top tier in Dutch football. Historically, Ajax (named after the l ...

and

Feyenoord Feyenoord Rotterdam () is a Dutch professional football club in Rotterdam, which plays in the Eredivisie, the top tier in Dutch football. Founded as Wilhelmina in 1908, the club changed to various names before settling on being called after its ...

, leading to the death of one hooligan. In April 2018, Kraay handed in his resignation at FC Lienden due to a discourtesy by supporters of the FC Lienden business club.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kraay, Hans 1959 births Living people Dutch men's footballers Dutch expatriate men's footballers Dutch football managers Dutch association football commentators Dutch television presenters Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players English Football League players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players San Jose Earthquakes (1974–1988) players Edmonton Drillers (1979–1982) players Footballers from Utrecht (city) AZ Alkmaar players Excelsior Rotterdam players HFC Haarlem players NAC Breda players RKC Waalwijk players Helmond Sport players FC Eindhoven players De Graafschap players FC Dordrecht players FC Den Bosch players Eredivisie players Eerste Divisie players Expatriate men's soccer players in Canada Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Canada Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States Dutch expatriate sportspeople in the United States VV DOVO managers FC Lienden managers K. Sint-Niklase S.K.E. players Men's association football defenders Edmonton Eagles players Canadian Professional Soccer League (original) players