René van der Gijp

Born in Dordrecht, van der Gijp started playing football at local side DFC. In 1975, he started playing in the Feyenoord youth academy with the likes of Hans Kraay Jr.. After a year, however, he was sent away from Feyenoord and moved to Sparta Rotterdam on the advice of Hans Kraay Sr. Two years later, van der Gijp made his debut in the first team, which counted players such as Louis van Gaal, Arie van Staveren, Luuk Balkestein, Adri van Tiggelen, Danny Blind, Ruud Geels, Ronald Lengkeek, Gerard van der Lem, Geert Meijer, Dick Advocaat and David Loggie.

After four seasons, in 1982, van der Gijp left Sparta joined Lokeren in Belgium. There, he made his first European appearances in his first season. He managed to score twice in four UEFA Cup matches.

Van der Gijp and Ruud Gullit for the Netherlands (1982).

After two and a half seasons, van der Gijp returned to the Netherlands in November 1984 to play for PSV. At the Eindhoven-based club, van der Gijp experienced the most successful years of his career, in which he became Dutch champions twice and scored more than forty goals. On 1 July 1987, van der Gijp left PSV, where he had played together with Ernie Brandts, Hallvar Thoresen, Glenn Hysén, Kenneth Brylle, Ruud Gullit, Frank Arnesen, Gerald Vanenburg and Ronald Koeman. His new club became the Swiss Neuchâtel Xamax coached by Gilbert Gress. Club management had assumed that van der Gijp was a striker with strong heading abilities, while he had in reality never played that position. Nevertheless, Neuchâtel Xamax became Swiss champions with van der Gijp in the team and also won the Swiss Super Cup twice. In Switzerland, he played another season and a half for FC Aarau, before returning to his former club Sparta.

After half a season with the Rotterdam team, he played the last two years of his career for SC Heerenveen, where he retired in 1992.[2]

From left to right: Hoekstra, Kieft, Van der Gijp, Holverda and Rijvers (1984).

In 1982, van der Gijp was first called up for the Netherlands national team by then national team coach Kees Rijvers. He made his international debut on 22 September 1982, in a UEFA Euro 1984 qualifying match at home against Republic of Ireland (2–1). Van der Gijp thus became the second Oranje international in history whose father also played in the Dutch national team. He would eventually play fifteen international matches in which he scored two goals, both scored in a friendly against Denmark (6-0). For the Netherlands, van der Gijp played mostly together with Ruud Gullit, Hans van Breukelen, Ronald Spelbos, Frank Rijkaard, Ben Wijnstekers, Marco van Basten, Sonny Silooy, Peter Boeve, Willy van de Kerkhof and Adri van Tiggelen. René became the third Van der Gijp to play for the Dutch national team. Both his uncle Cor van der Gijp and his father Wim van der Gijp wore the Orange jersey. René van der Gijp is often referred to the fact that he has not been able to get the most out of his career. Experts believe that he could have played more international matches with his talent and perhaps could have started working for a European top club. However, he himself questions this.[3]

At the table, Van der Gijp, Derksen and Genee have frequently discussed current affairs in and outside football, describing themselves as "making fun of everyone with a good portion of 'football humor', satire and pub talk. This has caused controversy in the media several times, while regular VI viewers appreciate the jokes and statements.[5]

In August 2013, Van der Gijp said in response to a Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) boat that was part of the Amsterdam Gay Pride: "Football is not a sport for gay men. If you're gay, you just go and work in a barber shop."[6] Johan Boskamp was also negative about this subject. The KNVB and various famous Dutch people reacted furiously to these statements. In response to the statements of van der Gijp and Boskamp, the program devoted attention to gay acceptance on the football field. Before that, the gay former professional footballer John de Bever and singer Gerard Joling had been invited to the studio.

At the beginning of February 2018, Derksen and van der Gijp made jokes about the Belgian journalist and author Bo Van Spilbeeck who had recently come out as transgender. Van der Gijp said before the last commercial break that from now on he would go through life as "Renate van der Gijp". After the commercial, he was wearing a dress and a wig. This sparked loud laughter in the studio. Derksen called transgender people "not normal". The screening elicited many negative reactions, including from social organisations, political parties and well-known Dutch people. Interest groups Transgender Netwerk Nederland and COC Nederland called the joke "sad" and again called for a sponsor boycott.[7] Despite the negative reactions, van der Gijp also received a lot of support from loyal VI viewers. In the next broadcast, van der Gijp responded to the commotion: "Well, I do not have anything against gays, transgender people or lesbians. I don't care about what they do. Our viewers know very well when it was a joke; out viewers are not complete idiots. We have gone completely crazy in this country".[8]

Van der Gijp was a columnist for the football magazine Voetbal International for many years. In the summer of 2012, the book Gijp was published. In the book, written by Michel van Egmond, both the football and TV career of van der Gijp is explored, as well as digging deeper into the occupational burnout which kept him away from the public eye during large parts of 2011. In total, more than 350,000 copies were sold, which meant that it ended in first place in "De Bestseller 60" list for seven weeks and was the fourth best-selling Dutch book of that year. On 15 October 2013, it won the "NS Publieksprijs" (NS Audience Award) in a TV broadcast of De Wereld Draait Door. Michel van Egmond received, in the presence of van der Gijp, a sculpture by artist Jeroen Henneman, a cash prize of € 7,500 and a first-class annual subscription from the Nederlandse Spoorwegen. The follow-up book De wereld volgens Gijp (2016) also became a bestseller and was also awarded the NS Audience Award.

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