Cees van Hasselt

Cornelis Wilhelmus van Hasselt (5 October 1872 – 16 January 1951) was a Dutch footballer and manager, who coached the Netherlands national team from its first unofficial matches in 1901 until 1908.

Playing career Van Hasselt played for his hometown club Sparta Rotterdam from 1893 to 1905. He was a part-time Sparta player and full-time Rotterdam tailor. Van Hasselt played six times for an early Dutch representative side, playing friendlies against European club teams in the late 19th century.

Between 1894 and 1896, van Hasselt played for the Netherlands in four unofficial matches against English clubs, including a 3–3 draw with Felixstowe FC on 3 December 1894, a 1–2 loss to Maidstone FC on 31 March 1895, a 9–2 win over Saxmundham FC on 18 November, and a 2–3 loss to the English Wanderers on 12 April 1896. In his fifth cap, van Hasselt scored an own goal in the 5th minute in an eventual 2–6 loss to the English Wanderers on 28 March 1897. On 10 April 1898, the 26-year-old van Hasselt played his sixth and last unofficial appearance for the Netherlands, helped his side to a 7–0 win over the English Wanderers.

Managerial career Unofficial matches (1901–04) In 1901, the Antwerp football director Frédéric Vanden Abeele personally hired van Hasselt as a last resort attempt to assemble a Dutch team that could play against a Belgium squad for the so-called Coupe Vanden Abeele. Van Hasselt was able to do so mainly thanks to help of his friend Jirris, the captain of Rotterdam club side Celeritas, a club from a third-level competition, whose squad was then strengthened by three players from another Rotterdam club, Olympia, which was also a third-level side. The Dutch unsurprisingly lost 0–8 to the much more superior Belgian team, but since the Dutch national team was only made-up of players born in Rotterdam, and since the match was not yet played under the auspices of the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB), it is considered unofficial.

Van Hasselt then organized a further three unofficial friendly cup games against Belgium, but as a result of the games not being sanctioned by the KNVB, only players from the second division were available to Van Hasselt, so Belgium also won those three editions, although with more leveled scores (1–0, 2–1 and 6–4). Van Hasselt managed the Dutch national team for ten more games, winning five and losing five, including two heavy defeats at the hands of England amateurs, both in 1907, losing the latter 12–2, which still is the heaviest defeat in the history of the Netherlands national team.

Ahead of the 1908 Olympic Games in London, the KNVB thought the time had come for an experienced English manager, so Van Hasselt was replaced by Edgar Chadwick. Before the Second World War, Van Hasselt was also the organizer of the large flower exhibition Prima Vera, which took place in the Nenijto hall, and attracted thousands of visitors to Rotterdam. In 1938, the seventh edition of the flower exhibition was officially opened by Minister of Economic Affairs Max Steenberghe.

Cees van Hasselt died from the consequences of a stomach haemorrhage. He was buried in the Crooswijk General Cemetery. In 1999, a street in Rotterdam was named after him, the Kees van Hasseltstraat in the new housing estate in Terbregge.