Johannes Hildebrand de Wolf (born 10 December 1962) is a Dutch former professional footballer, 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. He began his professional career with Sparta Rotterdam, making his senior debut in 1983. After two seasons in the team, he departed for FC Groningen where he continued to impress and won a call-up to the Dutch national team in 1987. The defender moved on to Feyenoord in 1989 and after a season outside their first team, he settled into the side and won the Dutch league championship in

1992–93 Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 '' Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since t ...

with the club. During a stay of four full seasons he also won three Dutch Cups, a Johan Cruyff Shield 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 (second tier) side Wolverhampton Wanderers 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. 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 weavers settled in the area in the 14th ...

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 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 ...

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 stint ...

and won five further caps during 1993–94. He scored two international goals during a 6–0 thrashing of San Marino 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 soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States w ...

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

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 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 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''. 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