Clyde Wijnhard ⭑ From A-Z since '92
This wasn't just a new partner for Jimmy Hasselbaink. This was a player from the Ajax academy whose debut goal was set up by Dennis Bergkamp. Derek Lilley had never done that.
This is part of my (eight year long, it'll fly by) attempt to write about every Leeds United player since 1992. For more about why I'm doing this, go back to Aapo Halme, and to read all the players so far, browse the archive here.
Leeds United's new signing, arriving within a week of 1997/98 ending, was meant as a foil for the previous season's striking sensation Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. First, though, he was a boost to headline writers. It's Double Dutch! Clyde is Bonnie! Clyde Wijns! Double Dutch Courage is Hard for Bonnie Clyde to Wijn!
Like Hasselbaink, Clyde Wijnhard was a Dutch national born in Paramaribo, Suriname. Like Hasselbaink, he had a name that sounded very funny to English people. Like Hasselbaink, he was virtually unheard of in England before Leeds spent £1.5m on him. Hasselbaink had cost £2m after scoring 24 goals for Boavista in Portugal, and he'd got 22 in his first Premier League season. George Graham hoped Wijnhard, after an eighteen goal season for Eredivisie side Willem II, could repeat that success.
Of the two, Wijnhard had the better pedigree. While Hasselbaink had come through the ranks at Telstar and AZ Alkmaar while they were in the second tier, scoring five first team goals before heading to Portugal, Wijnhard was a product of the Ajax youth system. He made a scoring debut in the Eredivisie in a 4-1 win over Dordrecht '90 in 1993, a goal set up by Dennis Bergkamp in a team including Marc Overmars, Edgar Davids and Frank de Boer. The squad also included Edwin van der Sar, Michael Reiziger, Clarence Seedorf, Bryan Roy and Jari Litmanen, so although Wijnhard started the next match and scored again from the bench a few weeks later, manager Louis van Gaal only gave him one more five minute appearance from the bench.
The next season, after Patrick Kluivert and Finidi George were added to the ranks, Wijnhard was loaned to Groningen. When he came back Nwankwo Kanu was in the team, Ajax were on their way to winning the Champions League, and Wijnhard was in the reserves being retrained as a right-back.
"I got the ball and immediately flew forward," Wijnhard told de Volksrant a couple of years ago. "'What are you doing!' shouted Van Gaal. 'You are right back, back!' Defending is not in my character, my heart was in front." Van Gaal has, apparently, admitted to Wijnhard that this was a misguided move. It worked better with Reiziger.
For two seasons at RKC Waalwijk, Wijnhard proved his place was up front and that he could score goals in a team at the foot of the Eredivisie. In the season he spent with Willem II, before joining Leeds, his fourteen league goals in 29 games helped them have one of the best seasons in their modern history. By finishing 5th they qualified for Europe for the first time since 1963, secured by their 3-0 win over Sparta Rotterdam on the final day, and by Wijnhard scoring the first two. The second was an outrageous overhead backheel that YouTube videos still insist is 'niet normaal!':
Wijnhard strutted through his celebration of that goal in front of Willem II's home fans, around the pitch, and straight over to the touchline, where a substitute was waiting to play the last half an hour. During the pitch invasion, at the end, one fan rubbed his 'bald, marble' head. These were Wijnhard's last contributions to Willem II, although he didn't necessarily want them to be. He was told that a top English club wanted to buy him, but the idea of leaving was "crazy" — Wijnhard wanted to be part of Willem II's European adventure. "Clyde, Leeds United wants you," the sporting director told him. "Then I left right away," Wijnhard says.
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