Henk ten Cate on the Edmonton Drillers, dining with Wayne Gretzky and Southampton’s success
A different lifetime ago, Henk ten Cate found himself in Edmonton playing for the city’s NASL side the Drillers. The franchise had a Dutch coach, Hans Kraay, a smattering of Dutch players and they played in brilliant orange shirts. Ten Cate stayed for a season before returning to Holland, eventually building towards a coaching career that has seen him serve as an assistant at Barcelona (one Champions League and two La Liga titles in three seasons) and Chelsea (Champions League and Premier League runners-up in his seven months at Stamford Bridge).
Still, the memories of his time in Canada flowed effortlessly when we met recently in Dublin.
“It was different – absolutely different. Sometimes we played in baseball stadiums with the pitching mound still there in the middle of the park. I happened to play on Astro Turf for the first time and I remember one game in Boston – against New England Tea Men – it was 40 degrees Celsius so you burned your feet on the surface – it was horrible. But I had a fantastic time over there. We travelled throughout the continent and when you played an away game, you’d spend two weeks on the road and play three or four. It was adventurous but hardly any people came to watch the games and that was a disappointment. I think it was the biggest reason that soccer didn’t make it then.”
In relative terms, the Drillers enjoyed average attendances of almost 11,000 in 1980, fans buoyed by a solid campaign which saw the team climb to the top of the Western Division. They pushed through to the conference semi-finals where they were beaten by a Fort Lauderdale Strikers side that featured the devastating attacking duo of Gerd Muller and Tefilo Cubillas.
“Edmonton was a new city, it felt newly built. I experienced Klondike Days – it was like celebrating the gold rush with cowboys and all of that. But what I remember most was the oil – the owner of the club was Peter Pocklington – who was in charge of the Oilers. And the best memory I have from my time there is meeting Wayne Gretzky, who was then still a teenager. Another teammate and I were queuing up outside a restaurant and he recognized us – we didn’t recognize him! And he took us with him so we could go to the restaurant directly. We had heard something about a big hockey talent arriving and I had read some things in the newspapers. We also heard how much he was signing for and we envied him for that! He was a good guy, normal and not cocky – he was a good lad.”
Since leaving the Premier League in 2008, ten Cate has travelled extensively. In Greece, he guided Panathinaikos to the Champions League knockout stage before taking up coaching positions in Qatar and China. He’s keeping a firm eye on developments within MLS and may make North America his next port of call.
“I had an offer about 18 months ago but I had something else in mind. It’s still an option to think about because it’s a great place to live and work and I like the mentality of the athletes. MLS is getting better and better. If you look at the names that are going to play over there now, I think the league is going to improve a lot. Without any doubt, in the near future, we will have an American soccer superstar.”
Despite staying for barely half a year in England, ten Cate still monitors the Premier League closely - the recent managerial additions of his compatriots Louis van Gaal and Ronald Koeman have provided an added layer of intrigue.
The latter has experienced a wonderful start to his career at Southampton, overseeing the team’s rise to second place in the table. The club’s chairman, ironically, is former Oilers coach Ralph Krueger and ten Cate feels that as much as Koeman has excelled, he has been well-supported by those at an executive level.
“Koeman is doing amazingly well – it’s fantastic what he’s doing over there in a short period of time. He had to put together a whole new team, almost. But that says a lot about the club and about him. He believed in some players from the Dutch league – Tadic and Pelle – who were good players back in Holland and he’s created something with the team and that’s why they’re successful. They haven’t played the strongest teams yet so we’ll have to wait and see how they’ll do. But Koeman’s success and the performances of Tadic and Pelle are good things for Dutch football as well.”
Manchester United meanwhile have struggled since van Gaal took over, despite spending lavishly in the summer. However, ten Cate is adamant the club have appointed the right man to get them back to winning ways.
“I rate Van Gaal as the best coach – because of the titles he’s won, because of the way he works, because of his attitude. He’s the only one – the only Dutch coach – to go to Barcelona, Bayern Munich, the national team, now Manchester United. He had offers from all over the place. I don’t think it’s surprising that something like that happens to him and not to me or other coaches. He’s not easy to work with but he’s a good guy, a good person.
"What he sees – and this is important – is that his team is improving. He’s implementing a different style of football. And then it’s about waiting for the right moment – then the team will be doing great. I had the same experience at Barcelona. We were six months building a new team, we weren’t doing that well but you could see the team improving. And I think it was January when all of the pieces fell into place and we won, I think, 14 in a row. So it’s about waiting for this moment.”
Eoin O'Callaghan is a soccer journalist and broadcaster. Best known in North America for his TV work with Fox Soccer, he has also reported extensively for BBC, RTE and Setanta Sports. He writes about soccer for The Irish Examiner newspaper, beIN Sports, One World Sports and TheScore.ie. Follow him @EoinOCallaghan
