- Portret
Hattrick heroes: Ties Kruize's football record
In 52 seasons in the Tulp Hoofdklasse men's side, 966 hat-tricks have already been produced. In this series, we highlight some dreaded hat-trick heroes, such as the iconic Ties Kruize.
Kruize can rightly count himself as one of the most legendary players in Hoofdklasse history. In the early years of the Hoofdklasse, the renowned penalty-corner specialist from the famous Kruize hockey family turned out to be a feared marksman with his striking power and fine technique for big power Klein Zwitserland, which won the national title eight times in a row between 1977 and 1984.
In the 1980-1981 season, Kruize was unstoppable. He scored ten hat-tricks and crowned himself top scorer with 57 (!) goals in eighteen matches. That is still an unprecedented achievement, comparable to the unattainable Eredivisie record of PSV professional footballer Coen Dillen from 1956-1957 (43 goals).
Kruize set another record in that golden season: in the home game against poor Breda on 15 March 1981, he scored no fewer than 11 goals, almost a quadruple hat-trick. In doing so, he helped KZ to a 15-0 victory, a result that is still the biggest ever in the Hoofdklasse.
In total, Kruize made 31 hat-tricks in his big league career, all as a player of Klein Zwitserland. No other player made so many hat-tricks for a single club. All those records give Kruize's status even more eternal shine.
