Euros Heroes: Ruud Gullit
My next Euros Hero is my hero, from when I was 9 years old, Rudi Dil, better known as Ruud Gullit. The grace and presence that Gullit had, both at Euro 1988 and as part of a Dutch triumvirate at AC Milan alongside Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard, made me instantly fall in love with him.
Typically, for so many footballers, he came from humble beginnings. His father, George Gullit was a recent immigrant from Suriname to the Netherlands (travelling with a certain Herman Rijkaard, who would go on to have an equally impressive son) and, though he found skilled work as an economics teacher, the family lived in a one bedroom flat in Amsterdam.
Ruud took his mother’s name: Dil and is still legally known as Rudi Dil but started using his father’s name as an aspiring footballer with AFC DWS which is not a sofa manufacturer but a football team in the seventh tier of Dutch football.
Gullit started his professional career at HFC Haarlem, where he was a revelation and worked under the tutelage of Welsh coach (but long-term Dutch resident) Barry Hughes. Hughes would go on to call Gullit the “Dutch Duncan Edwards” the brilliant Englishman who was tragically lost, aged 21, to the Munich Air Disaster.
Perhaps it was the British connection that meant that both Arsenal and Ipswich Town were given the chance to sign Ruud but, alas, a move to Portman Road (where he would have played under another of my favourite football people, Sir Bobby Robson) never materialised and he ended up at Feyenoord, playing with Johan Cruyff. Wow.
He would later play for PSV, AC Milan, Sampdoria and Chelsea and was fabulous at every single one. His first game in English football was, of course, at Priestfield Stadium, Gillingham. Where a packed house clamoured to see him make his debut for Chelsea and he got to see just how good Leo Fortune-West really was.
But for me, he’ll always be the hugely impressive guy that led the Orange Army to the Euros in 1988. Sweeping aside England in the process. What a player. What a tash. What a Barnet.
And if you’re wondering what an England defeat looks like set to sad piano music, look no further — click here. We could actually have been 2–0 up early on …
