Feyenoord top scorer Cor van der Gijp could head like no other

Cor van der Gijp, who died on Saturday at the age of 91, scored 177 times in 233 league matches for Feyenoord. This makes him the club’s top scorer of the entire period that the Rotterdam club plays professional football. In the early fifties, Van der Gijp started his career at the Emma club in Dordrecht, which was very popular at the time. He played beautiful football with three other Van der Gijp brothers: Freek, Janus and Wim. All on the attack. The quartet was an attraction on the Dutch fields. Cor, the youngest, left for Feyenoord in 1955 – a year after the introduction of professional football in the Netherlands.

The center forward did that on the advice of trainer Richard Dombi, the “Hungarian miracle doctor” who also switched from Emma to Feyenoord that year. The transfer fee was 18,000 guilders. In a column in Football International Johan Derksen later wrote that Van der Gijp had a basic salary of 3,600 guilders per year. Derksen described Feyenoord’s game with left winger Coen Moulijn, midfielder Henk Schouten and Cor van der Gijp as dream football at the time. “The two attackers felt each other flawlessly and made optimal use of each other’s qualities. […] In 1961 and 1962, this collaboration resulted in the national championship.”

Van der Gijp, uncle of Lachebek and ex-top player René, was fast, could choose a good position and was particularly strong in the air as a striker. “I have scored a lot of goals with my head,” he says in the book Builders of Feyenoord (1972). “The greatest happiness possible,” he continues, “[is] to be a teammate of Coen Moulijn. I will be grateful to him all my life, because Coen has made the biggest part for me. Playing with such a left winger has been extremely important to me.” The thirteen-time international (six goals) was an expert at heads to the ground, low in the corner.

Goodbye to old love

After his successful period in the Kuip, the well-spoken atmosphere maker Van der Gijp moved to Blauw-Wit in Amsterdam in 1964. There he missed Moulijn very much. He could still header, but he got too few useful crosses. In 1972 he became a trainer of the first division club Veendam, where he stopped after two years. During his time at Veendam he discovered Dick Nanninga, whom he took over from amateur club Oosterparkers. According to Derksen, Van der Gijp advised his old love Feyenoord at the time to take over the strong striker. “But the technically responsible people in De Kuip scorned that advice.” In 1978 Nanninga scored for the Orange squad in the World Cup final against Argentina.

In 1989 Van der Gijp returned to Feyenoord as technical coordinator. He was given the technical leadership of the club together with Pim Verbeek. After a dramatic first half year, the board appointed Gunder Bengtsson as technical director. Club icon Van der Gijp handed in his contract, seriously disappointed.