Eddy de Neve

Eduard Karel Alexander de Neve (1 January 1882 or 2 January 1885 – 30 August 1943) was a Dutch footballer who played as a forward for Velocitas Breda, HBS Craeyenhout and the Netherlands national team.

Early life De Neve was born in either 1882 or 1885 in Batavia, Dutch East Indies, the son of Eduard Karel Alexander de Neve, a major in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, and Johanna Christina Fokker. His father died when De Neve was 9 or 10 years old, and the family moved to the Netherlands.

Football career In The Hague, De Neve joined football club Quick. When he joined the Royal Netherlands Army, he started to play football for Velocitas Breda, which was affiliated with the Royal Military Academy of the Netherlands. He moved to HBS Craeyenhout in 1905, and won the Dutch national football title in his first season back in The Hague.

De Neve was part of the first Netherlands national team, which played for the Coupe Vanden Abeele against Belgium on 30 April 1905. De Neve made the opening goal of the match after 80 minutes. An own goal by Dutchman Ben Stom in the 86th minute was the equalizer, and the score was 1–1 after regular time. The Netherlands had won its first match ever, and De Neve had scored all four Dutch goals.

Personal life De Neve worked for several Dutch companies and plantations in the Dutch East Indies, but he struggled to get by. In 1913, he was engaged to Daisy Maud Green in the port of Genoa, Italy. The two were married on 14 August 1914 in Lubuk Sinapeng in the Dutch East Indies. They had one son, Gilles Pieter Cornelis de Neve, known as 'Gilles Jr.' The couple were divorced after 12 years; Daisy Maud and Gilles Jr. moved to The Hague, while De Neve remained in the Dutch East Indies.

Death Eddy de Neve died during the Second World War on 30 August 1943, in a Japanese concentration camp in the Dutch East Indies.