John de Wolf

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 Groningen where he continued to impress and won a call-up to the Netherlands 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 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, and helped them reach the FA Cup quarter-finals, as well as remarkably scoring a hat-trick 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 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…

International

Scores and results list the Netherlands' goal tally first, score column indicates score after each De Wolf goal.

Player

Feyenoord

Eredivisie: 1992–93 KNVB Cup: 1990–91, 1991–92, 1993–94 Dutch Supercup (in 1996 rebranded as Johan Cruyff Shield): 1991; runner-up 1992, 1993, 1994

Assistant manager

Feyenoord

Eredivisie: 2022–23 KNVB Cup: 2023–24