Roel Wiersma

In 1949, Wiersma debuted for the Donar first team, which played in the Dutch Fourth Division at the time. In his first season, the club was immediately promoted to the Third Division. Wiersma played for Donar until the 1954-55 season, when the team again won promotion; this time to the Second Division. His games at Donar were combined with his performances on the national Air Force football team (as part of his conscription). For Wiersma’s military service, he was stationed in Eindhoven as a sports instructor sergeant. He arranged a match for the Air Force team against an English military team. After Heerenveen’s Imke de Jong was outplayed by his English counterpart, Wiersma decided to substitute De Jong and bring himself onto the field. During his service, Wiersma trained several times at PSV Eindhoven and his performances at Donar and the Air Force football team meant that PSV decided to sign him in 1954. From the 1950s onwards, PSV conducted a shift in player’s heritage; the team went from mostly Brabantian men to players nationwide. Part of this policy was Wiersma’s transfer, who moved for a fee of 3000 Guilders (although PSV eventually only paid 2500 Guilders to Donar). Every player who signed for PSV, would also work for Philips, as was customary at the time. His father and siblings already worked for the Nederlandsche Seintoestellen Fabriek (NSF), which was partially owned by Philips. Consequently, Wiersma started to work at the NSF as well. Throughout his career,…

While still playing for Donar in the third tier of the Dutch league system, Wiersma debuted in the Netherlands national team. On 24 October 1954, he appeared in an exhibition match against Belgium. Since his first cap, Wiersma set a 35-match streak for not missing a single Netherlands match. This series of matches in a row (starting from the player’s first cap) is a Dutch record until this day. In the match that Wiersma missed and thus ended his record, the Netherlands lost to West Germany 0-7. He mostly appeared in friendly matches; Wiersma played four 1958 FIFA World Cup qualification matches and three 1962 FIFA World Cup qualification matches. Wiersma's most notorious qualification match was an away fixture against Austria. The Dutch team lost 3-2 and Wiersma was stretchered off the field: after a hard tackle by Robert Dienst, he landed on the running track and ended up with a bloody face and a concussion. In 15 of his matches, Wiersma served as captain of the Dutch side. His national team career ended after a row with coach Elek Schwartz, who benched Wiersma after a 4-1 loss against Denmark in 1962. Schwartz blamed Wiersma’s bad performance on a disproportionate attention to his engineering study; Wiersma simply condemned his teammates’ mentality. The Denmark match later turned out to be his last for The Netherlands.

Wiersma was a right-footed right wing back. He was known to be a powerful, physical defender with great stamina. Wiersma usually played a rough but fair game. He was lacking in technical abilities, but he was strong in the air. Wiersma commented about his own game in 1962: “I am a player with very average technical skills. I could only manage so many years at this level because of my combativeness and because apparently, there are no better defenders around.”

Wiersma was born in Hilversum in 1932, after his parents had decided to move there from Amsterdam five years earlier. Wiersma is a Frisian name; his paternal grandfather was born in Harlingen. At age 8, he joined the sports club Donar in his home town. Besides football, Wiersma played a range of different sports at Donar, including baseball, basketball and table tennis.