Abe Lenstra

Abe Lenstra was a Dutch football player and national football icon in the 1950s who played as a forward for his hometown Heerenveen. Born on 27th November 1920, was a player-coach for the club in 1946-47 before moving to clubs like SC Enschede in 1954 and Enschedese Boys in 1960.

He retired from football in 1963 and was later diagnosed with the brain hemorrhage and spent the remainder of his life using a wheelchair. He died on 2nd September 1985, just days before the first ever International football match was hosted at Heerenveen. Lenstra won the Sportsman of the Year 1951 which was the first Sportsman of the Year election, Lenstra was the first to win this prize and won the Bond Rifle of the KNFB on 3rd April 1960.

Background

The football team learned Lenstra on the streets of Heerenveen. At school football Lenstra in the school football team. At the age of 12 Syd Castle, the Scottish coach of FF Heerenveen sought permission from Lenstra's father to play for the club’s youth setup. In 1936, when Lenstra was 15, he first joined the club's top team.

In 1936, Abe debuted with his elder brother Jan in the club’s second team. On 1st March 1936, played against Alcides from Meppel as Abe scored three and Jan six goals and missed the opportunity to move to the first team.

Debut

It was 16th July 1936, a tournament amongst clubs from Gorredijk, Noordwolde, Drachten, and Heerenveen was hosted. In the match against Gorredijk made Lenstra his debut which ended in a 2-2 with one scored by Abe and Hepkema's Courant quoted it as a "wonderful goal".

Lenstra was part of the first Friesian footballer to play football for the Oranjes. On 31st March 1940, when he was only 19 years old. This game was playing football against Luxembourg. Where they lost 5-4 with Lenstra contributing in a goal.

Rise to glory

In 1937, Lenstra was impressive that even interest from clubs came out to him from teams such as Huddersfield Town, a major club at that time in England with his parents refusing to let him go to England.

The season 1937 / 1938 was the major breakthrough for Heerenveen and Lenstra. In the league was too competitive for the newly promoted but Lenstra top scorer with 24 goals for the team.

Lenstra started attracting crowd due to his versatility in his attack from both right and let of goal along with his The 100-meter sprint in just 10.9 seconds which was a Frisian record at that time.

On 21st June 1947, a match in Maastricht was played, during which time the team was 4-0 behind, but eventually won it, with 6-7.

The club enjoyed a great decade in the league as they won 6 league titles in a row with the best encounter coming against Ajax. Lenstra led Heerenveen were trailing 5-1 to Ajax and with only 25 minutes remaining, the Frisian team inexplicably fought back for a 6–5 victory with Abe involved in almost all 5 goals.

In 1949, he rejected offers from Inter Milan, Fiorentina, Nime, Nice for more than 700,000 but he refused in favor of a stay at Heerenveen.

In 1954 he was signed by SC Enschede where he spent 5 years featuring in 135 matches, scoring 89 goals.

Retirement

In 1960, 40-year-old Lenstra moved to Enschedese Boys where he spends his last 3 years of his career retiring with an impressive feat of 700 goals in about 730 games.

Lenstra is the player with the longest career in Orange. Between his first and last match were less than 19 years, 1 month and 21 days with 47 caps and 33 goals.

Club career

Lenstra started with a club career at Heerenveen in 1936 where he scored 523 goals in 500 appearances. It was followed by a move to SC Enschede in 1954 scoring 89 goals in 135 matches. He played 95 matches for Enschedese Boys since 1960 in his early forties and scored 88 goals in his three-year spell.