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Goodbye to Witschge, Timmer back to AZ at season's end

25 March: At the end of the current season, the Ajax family will say goodbye to a born and raised Amsterdammer and an in thinkable every way typical Ajacied: Richard Witschge. Technical director Leo Beenhakker and head-coach Ronald Koeman told the 33 year-old left-footer that his expiring contract will not be extended. Meanwhile, Ajax also decided not to extend the loan of Henk Timmer. The 31 year-old will return to AZ at season's end.

RICHARD WITSCHGE

The career of Richard Witschge (Amsterdam, 20 September 1969) had many ups and downs. He was part of the Ajax youth crop which also brought forth the De Boer twins, Bryan Roy, Marciano Vink and Dennis Bergkamp, to name but a few. He made his official Ajax-1 début on 26 October 1986, in an Eredivisie away game at AZ (1-6). He since played no less than 279 official games for Ajax, in which he scored 18 goals.

With Frank de Boer (left back) and Bryan Roy (left winger), Witschge was soon regarded as the 'left flank future' of Dutch football. Ironically, the man who now told him that his days at Ajax are over (Leo Beenhakker) became Ajax's head-coach in 1989 and soon came up with an ironic expression that would haunt Witschge for many years. Beenhakker felt that the generation of Witschge and Roy was tremendously talented, but lacked the fighting spirit and ambition to reach the top. He referred to the youngsters in his team as the patatgeneratie, which literally means 'French Fries generation'. Richard Witschge, 19 years of age at the time, was regarded as the most typical representative.

The man who let him make his Ajax-1 début however, the great Johan Cruijff, firmly believed in Witschge's qualities and offered him a contract at FC Barcelona in 1991. At that point, Witschge had won the 1986 and 1987 KNVB Cups, the 1987 European Cup Winners Cup and the 1990 Dutch championship with Ajax.

Witschge played regularly, but never really made his big break in Barcelona, after which he moved to Girondins de Bordeaux in France, where he had several excellent years and built a reputation of a great football player. He also played for Blackburn Rovers in England for a while, before moving back home, to the Ajax of Louis van Gaal, in the summer of 1996.

Back in Amsterdam, he proved to have grown as a football player and as a person and wa sone of Ajax's best for several seasons. However, the Great Ajax of the mid-1990s was collapsing. Witschge won the 1998 Dutch championship with his team, as well as the Amstel Cups of 1998 and 1999, but these achievements were overshadowed by Ajax's sportive misery.

After the disastrous 1999-2000 season Ajax slowly started its recovery, but for Witschge the biggest difficulties were yet to come and ushered in by the signing of Co Adriaanse as the club's new head-coach. Witschge soon got into major conflicts with Adriaanse, along with Aron Winter. The duo ended up getting banned from the team. Witschge was loaned out to Spanish side Deportivo Alavés in August of 2001.

His (second) return to Amsterdam was announced in March of 2002, shortly after the firing of Adriaanse and the arrival of Ronald Koeman in the Amsterdam ArenA. The 2002-2003 season is Witschge's 11th season as an Ajax-1 squad member since 1986.

He played 31 games for the Dutch national team in his career, a number that could have been higher if he had not gotten into a conflict with national coach Guus Hiddink, which was a reason for Witschge to say goodbye to Oranje until his unexpected comeback in August of 2001.

Richard Witschge has the typically fickle personality of an Amsterdammer and enigmatic Ajacied. He was not always the easiest player to work with for his coaches, but has always been tremendously popular amongst Ajax fans. He can expect a big last hurrah from the crowd in his final home game for Ajax.

HENK TIMMER

The Ajax career of Henk Timmer (Hierden, 03 December 1971) has been significantly shorter than Witschge's. He was loaned out to Ajax by AZ at the beginning of the season as Bogdan Lobont, Maarten Stekelenburg and Joey Didulica sustained injuries in a short period of time.

A second remarkable chapter was then added to Timmer's career, who already spent a short period at Feyenoord for similar reasons. He joined Ajax with immediate effect and got to play two Eredivisie games and two Champions League games (Inter away and Rosenborg BK at home) for Ajax. It seems unlikely that he will make any more appearances this season. (MP)

(Source: Ajax.nl)