Johannes Hildebrand de Wolf (born 10 December 1962) 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 le ...

, who played as a defender. He earned six caps for the Dutch national team, scoring two goals.

Career

Club

De Wolf was born in

Schiedam Schiedam () is a city and municipality in the west of the Netherlands. It is located in the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area, west of Rotterdam, east of Vlaardingen, and south of Delft. In the south the city is connected with the village ...

. He began his professional career with

Sparta Rotterdam Sparta Rotterdam () is a Dutch professional football club based in Rotterdam. Established on 1 April 1888, Sparta Rotterdam is the oldest professional football team in the Netherlands. Sparta currently compete in the Eredivisie, the top flight ...

, making his senior debut in 1983. After two seasons in the team, he departed for

FC Groningen Football Club Groningen () is a Dutch professional association football club based in Groningen, province of Groningen. Founded on 16 June 1971 as the successor of GVAV, the team compete in the Eredivisie, the highest tier of Dutch football. G ...

where he continued to impress and won a call-up to the Dutch national team in 1987. The defender moved on to

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 ...

in 1989 and after a season outside their first team, he settled into the side and won the Dutch league championship in 1992–93 with the club. During a stay of four full seasons he also won three Dutch Cups, a

Johan Cruyff Shield The Johan Cruyff Shield (, ) is a football trophy in the Netherlands named after Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff, also often referred to as the Dutch Super Cup. The winner is decided in one match only, played by the winner of the national footbal ...

and made it to the 91–92 Cup Winners' Cup semi-final, which they lost on away goals against Monaco. He left for

English First Division The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...

(second tier) side

Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...

in December 1994 for £600,000. He was swiftly made captain of the side by manager

Graham Taylor Graham Taylor (15 September 1944 – 12 January 2017) was an English football player, manager, pundit and chairman of Watford Football Club. He was the manager of the England national football team from 1990 to 1993, and also managed Lincoln C ...

, and helped them reach the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

quarter-finals, as well as remarkably scoring a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

from centre-back in one game against

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

. However, he soon suffered a knee injury that ruled him out of the promotion run-in, where the team would ultimately lose to

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...

in the play-offs. The following season, however, he missed most games as Wolves finished a lowly 20th in the final table. The Dutchman fell out with new manager Mark McGhee who attempted to select him for the reserve side, only for De Wolf to speak out and claim that he should not be fielded in the reserves as he was an experienced player who had not been injured. He left the club soon afterwards and returned to his homeland with

VVV-Venlo VVV-Venlo (, ''VVV'' stands for ''Venlose Voetbal Vereniging'' meaning "Venlo Football Club") is a Dutch football club from Venlo, a city on the border with Germany. They play in the Eerste Divisie, the second tier of Dutch football, following ...

of the second division. After a solitary season back in his native land with VVV, he once again moved abroad, joining Israeli side

Hapoel Ashkelon Hapoel Ashkelon F.C. ( he, מועדון כדורגל הפועל אשקלון, ''Moadon Kaduregel Hapoel Ashkelon'') is an Israeli football club based in Ashkelon. The club currently competes in Liga Alef and plays at the 5,250-capacity Sala Sta ...

in 1997. He failed to adapt though and made only three appearances – scoring an own goal in his final game – before quickly returning to Dutch football with

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 ...

in the second flight. He had a strained personal relationship with the club, though, and both parties agreed to terminate his contract during his second season. De Wolf instead ended the campaign with a short spell as player-manager of amateur side Zwart-Wit '28.

International

De Wolf made his debut for the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

on 16 December 1987 in a 3–0 win in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

during their Euro '88 qualifying campaign. After this substitute appearance though, he was not chosen again for over five years. He returned to contention under managerialship of

Dick Advocaat Dirk Nicolaas Advocaat (; born 27 September 1947) is a Dutch former football player and coach who is currently the head coach of Eerste Divisie side ADO Den Haag. Advocaat was successful as a football player and as a coach, including three sti ...

and won five further caps during 1993–94. He scored two international goals during a 6–0 thrashing of

San Marino San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...

in March 1993 and was subsequently chosen for the squad for the

1994 World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football, soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the countr ...

, however he did not feature in any of the games. His final cap came on 13 October 1993 in a 2–0 win against

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 ...

that effectively ended England's hopes of qualifying and

's reign as manager. Ironically, it would be Taylor who would next sign de Wolf in his club career (for

Wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

Managerial

He retired from playing in 2000, and joined RKSV Halsteren as trainer. He has been manager of three different sides since – SVVSMC, VV Haaglandia and FC Türkiyemspor. He left the latter in February 2008. In February 2009 de Wolf became the manager of Voorschoten '97. A side in the

Eerste Klasse The Eerste Klasse ( en, First Class) started as the 1st tier of football in the Netherlands and is now the 6th tier. The league is divided into eleven divisions, six for Saturday clubs and five for Sunday clubs. These divisions correspond to the s ...

B. For the 2009–10 season he became manager of

WKE WKE (Woonwagenkamp Emmen ( en, Emmen Trailer Park)) is a association football, football club from Emmen, Netherlands, Emmen, Netherlands. WKE was founded on June 14, 1966 by residents of the local trailer park. The club won promotion to the Hoo ...

, a Dutch

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 ...

team. In March 2014 he was dismissed by VV Sliedrecht.Sliedrecht zet John de Wolf op straat
- AD

Outside football

De Wolf is currently working as a TV presenter on Dutch regional channel RNN7, on a show entitled ''Living with John''. He began his media career in 2004 on ''Correct Studio Sport'', before presenting the programmes ''Cooking with John'' and ''Sleeping with John''. In 2006, he was one of the participants on the Dutch hit-show ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the forma ...

''. He also featured on the show ''Fighting with the Stars'' in 2007, where he fought – and lost to –

Tschen La Ling Tscheu La Ling ( Chinese: 林球立; pinyin: ''Lín Qiú Lì''; born 6 January 1956) is a Dutch former professional footballer of mixed Dutch and Chinese descent, who played for clubs in the Netherlands, Greece and France. His name has been spell ...

, another former football player.

References

External links

CV John de Wolf
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolf, John De 1962 births Living people Footballers from Schiedam Dutch footballers Dutch football managers Dutch expatriate footballers Netherlands international footballers Sparta Rotterdam players Feyenoord players FC Groningen players Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players VVV-Venlo players Helmond Sport players Hapoel Ashkelon F.C. players Eredivisie players Eerste Divisie players English Football League players Liga Leumit players 1994 FIFA World Cup players Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Israel Dutch expatriate sportspeople in England Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Israel Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Turkey Association football defenders FC Türkiyemspor managers WKE managers Zwart-Wit '28 managers Zwart-Wit '28 players Excelsior Maassluis managers SV Spakenburg managers Feyenoord non-playing staff