Henk Pellikaan 1910 – 1999

Biography

Henk Pellikaan was born on November 10, 1910, in the Dutch town of Leerdam, a place known for its glassmaking traditions along the Rhine River. He would go on to become a footballer during a formative period of Dutch sports history, when the nation was developing its passionate football culture in the early twentieth century.

Throughout his life, Pellikaan was devoted to football, the sport that defined much of the recreational and professional landscape of his native Netherlands. His career placed him among the athletes who helped establish football as a central part of Dutch culture during the interwar years and beyond.

Henk Pellikaan spent his final years in Tilburg, another important city in the Dutch football tradition. He passed away on July 24, 1999, at the age of 88, having lived through nearly a century of transformative change in both his country and the sport he loved.