It could be said that Kris Sleeuwenhoek had a foot in both camps in last night’s Euro 2024 semi-final. Brought up in Wednesfield, and an England fan, his grandfather was Dutch. He had his own flirtation with England honours in a football career which sadly was over before it had really begun. Paul Berry found out more.
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There was a time when the name Kris Sleeuwenhoek meant pretty much one thing. Goals. And plenty of them.
The prolific striker from Wednesfield, with an electric turn of pace and clinical finish, certainly knew where the back of the net was.
A plethora of goals at youth level saw him reach the fringes of the England youth set-up and only miss out on a place at the prestigious FA School of Excellence at Lilleshall having been pipped by Andy Cole. Wonder what became of him.
Sleeuwenhoek, whose father John made 260 appearances in the Aston Villa defence in the 1960s, was hot property, and that led to the other reason why his name remains entrenched in the memory banks of a particular generation of the Molineux faithful.
At the start of the 1988/89 season, the then 16-year-old frontman made the move to Derby County but, having been on schoolboy terms at Wolves at the time, the Rams were accused of making an illegal approach.
‘Poachers’ screamed the headline on the back page of one of the tabloids. ‘Derby’s tap rap’ boomed another.
At a Football League hearing, Derby were found guilty and instructed to pay Wolves £40,000 for Sleeuwenhoek, along with other potential add-ons, as well as a further £25,000 following the similar capture of Jason Kavanagh from Birmingham City.
Derby, at the time, were in the top division, and Sleeuwenhoek was regarded as an outstanding prospect.
But through no fault of his own, his career trajectory was destined not to follow the path to the goalscoring fame and fortune which his abundant potential merited.
In a truly awful five month period before and during his second season at Derby, Sleeuwenhoek’s father passed away after suffering a heart attack at the age of just 45, and he suffered a severe knee injury from which he never completely recovered. And that came just 24 hours after hearing he had been called into the England Under-18 squad for a European Championship qualifier against Czechoslovakia. Sliding doors.
By the age of 21, he had effectively retired from professional football, never again to return to the same levels which had propelled him to the brink of a career in the game.
For the last three decades, despite still living in the local area, now settled in Penkridge, Sleeuwenhoek has kept a fairly low profile when it comes to football.
He knuckled down elsewhere, building a very successful new career as a financial advisor, recently setting up his own business as one final exciting and fulfilling working challenge which he hopes will also lead back into sport.
Alongside that new chapter has also arrived a more reflective dimension.
His father would have turned 80 back in February, prompting Sleeuwenhoek to reach for the old scrapbooks to look back on his career. Perfectly understandably, he is keen to keep those memories alive.
Around the same time, he was invited by Wolves club historian Peter Crump to one of his excellent talks at Wolves Museum, a look back at the club from 1986-90 during which he featured.
It was Sleeuwenhoek’s first time back at Molineux for many years, and he enjoyed it, but, even then, gave plenty of thought to whether to do this follow-up interview.
That’s because there is an extent to which Sleeuwenhoek felt he didn’t achieve anything having not made it at senior level.
And yet, in essence he achieved so much, and has done likewise since hanging up his boots, along with that much-deserved ambition to be proud of his family ties.
“A lot of my work since finishing football has been over Birmingham way, and, with my surname and Dad’s career, I am often asked if I am any relation and found out more about what a star he was locally and how much the Villa fans thought of him,” he explains.
“To an extent, I have always been known as ‘the son of’, and that’s absolutely fine.
“But as time goes on, and with that landmark birthday for my Dad, it kind of feels like his name is slowly disappearing and only people of a certain age would remember him.
“And I suppose, in my own case, I didn’t actually make it and went through a turbulent time, and I wonder if that was enough to leave some sort of footprint?
“Have I got a decent story to tell? I’m not sure really, I suppose I was a football player for a time, playing with and against some legends of the game, and it was really nice to be invited back to Wolves by Peter for the talk.
“It’s been nice to get that little bit of validation but I’m keen just to keep that recognition going for my Dad before it’s gone forever, apart from just being remembered in the history books.”
Sleeuwenhoek is a name that wasn’t particularly prevalent in Wolverhampton as it hailed from a Dutch paratrooper, who met John’s mother, whilst being stationed in Tettenhall during the Second World War.
Growing up a Wolves fan and watching the team from the terraces, Sleeuwenhoek senior was snapped up by Villa boss Joe Mercer as soon as he left school, adding two England Under-23 caps to his CV along with becoming a regular at Villa for six years, later being signed by Stan Cullis at Birmingham.
As his own career came to a close, he took more of an interest in Kris’s prospects, becoming joint manager, alongside Tony Painter, of the ultra-successful Dovedale Dynamos junior team which was to deliver so much success not to mention so many players who would progress to professional clubs.
Among those players was his own son, along with others who also progressed to Wolves such as Neville Fennell, Stuart Leeding, Stuart Evans, Loy Stobart and David Butler, as well as Mark Ashton the goalkeeper, now CEO at Ipswich in the Premier League, and Steve Hayward, notably of Fulham, amongst others.
Alongside his goalscoring exploits for Dovedale – he once scored 12 in a 47-0 victory – young Sleeuwenhoek the striker was blazing a trail with various representative sides including Wolverhampton, West Midlands and England Schools.
He was part of the West Midlands Schools side who destroyed a Lancashire team including Steve McManaman 5-1, Hayward grabbing a hat trick and Sleeuwenhoek the other two. He also played with McManaman in a Football League representative game at the age of 17.
From the age of 14, he was training at Wolves, in the gym above Molineux Hotel, being watched by the likes of Bill McGarry, Garry Pendrey and Barry Powell.
And that was around the time if narrowly missing out on heading to Lilleshall, having been part of 23 from around 2,000 attending trials to be then whittled down to 16 who would combine their studies with dedicated football and access to the best coaches to aid their progress and development.
“I always loved playing football growing up, and, as a family, we were all competitive,” Sleeuwenhoek recalls.
“Whether it was my Dad or older brother, Karl, none of us would ever give anything away whether it was football, golf, snooker, anything – it was that kind of environment and what you expect from a sporting family.
“And my Dad was always pushing me in football, so if I scored three, he’d say I should have scored five, or he’d tell me my tackling wasn’t very good!
“That Dovedale team had so many top players – we were as good as any junior team around at that time – and the scouts were always watching.
“For me, that led to trials for the National School of Excellence when we’d been shown around Idsall School and I got so close to the final 16 only to miss out to Andy Cole for the striker position.
“I do remember a bit later playing for Wolverhampton against Nottingham in a match at Aldersley when we beat them 4-2 and I got a hat trick and he only got one so in my head that tells me I was as good as he was at that age! The years when I wanted to progress after that, for me, was spent on the operating table and getting fit when I wanted to be progressing into the first team.
“But in getting so close to going to Lilleshall, and still banging the goals in, that is when other clubs started circling.”
Sleeuwenhoek was attracting interest from all the Midlands clubs, and others such as Arsenal, Tottenham and Southampton, but had signed schoolboy forms at Wolves with the promise of professional terms to follow.
Having hit 16, it was Derby County, then boasting plenty of ambition and spending power who came knocking, at a time when Wolves were aiming to launch their own revival after sinking from top division to bottom in successive seasons.
A request from Sleeuwenhoek to be released from his schoolboy contract to join the Rams was rejected with Wolves boss Graham Turner and chief scout Ron Jukes attending a tribunal in Blackburn to state the club’s case.
The move, however, went ahead all the same, prompting the bitterness and recriminations which, for the young striker, were very much out of his hands.
“I don’t remember much of what happened at that time if I’m honest, I just arrived at a hotel and was told this was happening,” he explains.
“Conversations had been going on, more with my Dad obviously,
“He had never made any money in football, good at the time I’m sure, but certainly not set up for life.
“He retired at 28 and went off to work for Leyland and I’m sure that was a struggle that he found hard to do, and I think that would have been a factor in terms of the opportunity that was available and direction of travel for me.
“He knew it was a short career and wanted the best for me and my future, and he had always said I needed a back-up plan and qualifications before I went out and kicked a ball.
“From what I was told, Derby had come in with a signing-on fee, offering three or four times as much money as I would have got at Wolves, and had players such as Peter Shilton, Mark Wright and Dean Saunders, who had joined from Oxford for a million pounds, and I just thought I’d learn more.
“The story panned out into being about the morals of football and poaching and obviously it was probably even more tarnished because I was a local lad.
“At the time, I was just a kid wanting to play football.”
And so, in trying to ignore and move on from the turbulence which his move had caused, and subsequent sanction imposed on Derby, play football is what Sleeuwenhoek did.
That was even though he had been thrown into the spotlight, even with his new team-mates, as Saunders marched into the boot room with a jocular comment or two and a copy of the story on the back page of the Sun detailing his contract terms.
Sleeuwenhoek continued his promising form in his first year as a Ram, being part of the team which came back from 2-0 down to beat Aston Villa in the FA Youth Cup at Villa Park, playing at other stadiums such as Highfield Road and Filbert Street, and even turning out for the reserves against Liverpool at Anfield. That Villa Park comeback was a huge highlight, particularly with his Dad watching in the stands.
In another game, a ‘derby’ against Nottingham Forest, his performance stood out to the extent that Brian Clough sought out his mum after the game to enquire as to his identity. And Sleeuwenhoek forged many more enduring friendships at Derby, including with Steve Round who has gone on to coach at the top level with the likes of Arsenal and England.
Sadly however, a spell of personal and professional turbulence was to hit Sleeuwenhoek that would turn the controversy around his move across the Midlands into a minor insignificance in comparison.
In July 1989, ahead of his second pre-season, his Dad died suddenly after suffering a heart attack at the age of 45, a tragedy from which his mum, who passed away last year, never truly recovered.
Sleeuwenhoek somehow managed to respond and continue to focus on his football, and it was a few months later that, having not for the first time been named in a shadow squad for England, he received news that he should report for duty.
Before that, however, was the small matter of a youth fixture with Derby to play, and, just 12 minutes in, came the incident which would so dramatically change his career.
Faced with a one-on-one with the goalkeeper, as so many times before, he tried to take the ball around him but his studs caught in the turf and, in the subsequent collision, he ruptured both the anterior cruciate and medial ligaments in his knee.
In the afternoon, Derby’s first team beat Manchester City 6-0. Sleeuwenhoek reported to the Baseball Ground on crutches to meet the club’s surgeon and, by 5.30pm, was in hospital for his first operation.
He would later need further surgeries, alongside spending the best part of two years at Lilleshall at a time when many injured sports stars headed there to undergo rehabilitation, and his roommate was British tennis star Chris Bailey.
Although he did get back playing, by now Derby had added to their striker ranks with the likes of Paul Kitson, Marco Gabbiadini and Tommy Johnson, and the emergence of a certain Dean Sturridge, with whom he played alongside before the injury, nudging him further down the pecking order.
For so many different reasons, these were clearly, very difficult times.
“With the injury, I don’t think I realised the extent of the damage that had been done,” he recalls.
“And then it was very quickly about getting into the recovery, and Derby really looked after me in that respect by sending me to Lilleshall.
“After my Dad had passed, I had been back in training soon afterwards and just trying to carry on as best I could and go out there with something to prove.
“It probably didn’t hit me for a long time, I’d love to have asked my Dad so many questions about what it was like to play at Old Trafford against Best, Law and Charlton, and more about his career or playing at Villa Park with over 55,000 watching – what that must have flet like.
“But when you’re growing up, he’s just your Dad, isn’t he? Life is just normal and we wouldn’t talk too much about all that.
“To go through losing him, then get back to football and the England call only to suffer a serious injury, so much happened in the space of a few months.
“And things were certainly never the same again.
“Derby did give me another year’s contract but at the end of that, I got the dreaded call to the boardroom where the manager Arthur Cox told me there was more to life than football.”
Sleeuwenhoek did try and give it one last shot, former Wolves boss Sammy Chapman was now scouting for Port Vale who showed an interest but after a brief trial at West Bromwich Albion, where he picked up an ankle injury following a tackle, and a short spell at Telford, he decided enough was enough.
With a mortgage and bills to pay, he needed to earn a secure living and plan for the future. At 21, his first career, in football, had come to an end.
He had already pursued a BTEC in business and finance, alongside then Forest players Sean Dyche and Scott Gemmill, and had begun accountancy training, but with more years of study ahead, and the need to earn an income, instead he opted to become a financial adviser where he could combine qualifications with starting out in work.
That has been life for the last 30 years.
He has learned the financial industry – good and bad – has built up a substantial base of knowledge and experience to be ready, now, at the age of 52, to go it alone, fully understanding the value of good advice and planning a secure future.
Sleeuwenhoek, who deals with a diverse clientele of doctors, businesspeople and now sports professionals, would love to pick up an additional sporting name or two, something to take him back to the world of the emotion of competition.
“I just wanted one more challenge in my working life, and to use all my skills and experience to help people in an industry which is going through a lot of change,” he explains.
“I have over 25 years of wealth management experience, and only wish to work for like-minded clients who value advice and know I will always act in their best interests.
“I know the value that I can give people, and I know that I can be trusted, and I’d also love to have a bit of personal interest from a sporting perspective, as well as professional.
“I’ve previously been back into Derby’s Academy to talk about the importance of looking after your finances in what is a very short career – you only get one crack at it and won’t get a chance to earn that sort of money again.
“I’ve started to get back into watching games – a lot of my doctors work in sport or with clubs – and it’s hopefully going to be a really exciting part of my working life moving forward.”
There are few in my field who can boast the level of expertise, and experience in sport as Sleeuwenhoek, considering what he went through three decades ago and how his life was torn apart in such a short space of time.
He wears both the emotional scars of battle and the physical ones. We meet at the Three Hammers Golf Club – golf is now one of the few sports he can play, given the legacy of the knee injury which now also includes bone disease and arthritis and will one day require a replacement.
But there is also a sense that he is at peace with the misfortune which was behind his missed opportunity, and while the mind has often wandered to what might have happened had he stayed fit, or even whether he might have been part of the Wolves revival had he remained at Molineux, those days are in the past.
With a happy family life with childhood sweetheart Jo and daughter Maddie who is shortly off to study fashion in London, there is no regret or recrimination when looking back, merely curiosity. It’s about looking forward, as nothing can be done to change the past.
“That’s what I think when looking back at my brief time in football, just wondering what might have happened if things had been different, and what standard I would have played at if the career was longer,” he confirms.
“But it had reached the point where I had to acknowledge that it had gone.
“People sometimes say that I missed out on money but I’ve had a good life, ups and downs like most people and I don’t think about that – it’s more about what might have been and making a better future for the family. I try and get a balance of planning for tomorrow but enjoying life as I go.
“There have been tough times and a battle mentally at times as you might expect given those experiences but it’s all part of life which everyone has to go through, and I’ve just had to be resilient, dust myself down and get on with it.”
The story of Kris Sleeuwenhoek. Featuring so much more than just goals and a transfer controversy.
THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN THE EXPRESS & STAR
