The death of fellow Ajax player Bennie Muller shocked former Ajax physiotherapist Salo Muller yesterday. Although they have the same surname, they were not related, but they were both of Jewish descent. They became friends during their Ajax period. For Salo it is a done deal: there are few like Bennie.
Bennie Muller played 426 games for Ajax and he did not reach that number for nothing. According to Salo, Bennie was almost never injured. A rare moment is captured and 87-year-old Salo finds a photo in his collector’s book: “Here he was injured,” he points out. “That was Feyenoord-Ajax and that was a nasty injury. He got a knee in his thigh. This happened to be Feyenoord’s masseur, who was also on the field and helped Bennie up.”
Salo about friend Bennie Muller – AT5
The Amsterdammer played between 1958 and 1970 and only six players played more often. He became national champion five times and won the cup three times. After his period at Ajax, he went to Holland Sport in Scheveningen and ended up in Amsterdam, at Blauw-Wit. Salo thought it was a shame that Bennie left Ajax, because he got along well with him and appreciated his mentality.
Salo admired Bennie both on the field and off it. “Salo, do what you have to do, but I have to play football on Sunday,” he describes Bennie’s hunger for the ball. “I miss that a lot now, but Bennie was a great football player. Also a very nice boy. And a sensitive boy.”
Typical of that period was the number of footballers who, in addition to their playing career, also ran their own business. Bennie Muller had a cigar shop and Salo remembers that well. “He was always in that cigar shop in the Haarlemmerstraat there,” he remembers. “You could order tickets from him and he knew all the customers. He was also very nice there.”
Fog competition
A beautiful memory that both Mullers shared was the fog match in 1966, for the European Cup against Liverpool in the Olympic Stadium. In October 2020, we looked back on that evening with Bennie and his wife Nel. “I recognized Bennie’s legs, I immediately recognized them in the fog,” is Nel’s memory. Bennie said: “We couldn’t even see each other through the fog.”
Salo also remembers that evening very clearly, unlike what he saw at the time. “We didn’t see a lot of things,” he reflects. “I ran onto the field three or four times because a player was injured. I treated him and the match continued as normal. The balls flew past me.”
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