Wim Landman

Neptunus and Sparta

Earlier than fellow Dutch goalkeeper Frans de Munck, Landman was nicknamed "The Black Panther", due to his black hair and technique which, despite suffering from rheumatism, was elegant and supple. Landman started his career with Rotterdam club Neptunus before joining Sparta Rotterdam in 1949; a controversial move. In the club magazine of Neptunus, De Revue, the later Het Vrije Volk journalist and Omroepvereniging VARA quizmaster Theo Eerdmans denounced the transfer with words like "shame" and "unworthy of club sport". All the more because Landman made the move at the age of 28.

SHS

In 1954, Landman returned to the pitch. He was offered a professional contract with one of the first initiatives to practice professional football in the Netherlands: BVC Rotterdam. The club did not exist for long and eventually merged into Holland Sport, which later became Scheveningen Holland Sport (SHS). From the 1954–55 season, Landman played for this club and gained three more caps for the Netherlands.

Allegations of match fixing

Particularly weak performances in matches of SHS against NAC and BVV led to rumours that Landman had been bribed. In the case of the game against BVV on 27 May 1956, this was deemed a fact for a long time, because the KNVB suspended him for a year and a half in 1959 after it came to light. But in the meantime, bribery had not been proven. On 16 March 1959, the list of those suspended in the BVV affair was published in…

During the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, he was the standard bearer of the Dutch team. Also four years later he was among the participants in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. From that year, 1952, he played four times for the Netherlands national team. After not being called up for the international match against Norway on 27 September 1953, Landman, who had been known for his vanity, ended his international career abruptly; he felt that he was not taken seriously by the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB). "I didn't even go and watch the games anymore, because then I just got upset and a person shouldn't get too excited. That is bad for health."