Full name Paul Van Himst Name Paul Himst Playing position Role Football manager Date joined 1960 | Height 1.81 m Movies Escape to Victory Years Team Weight 83 kg | |
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Date of birth (1943-10-02) 2 October 1943 (age 72) Spouse Arlette Neckebroeck (m. 1965–2013) | ||
Paul Van Himst
Paul Van Himst (born 2 October 1943) is a retired Belgian football forward and a football manager. Now retired, he still supports R.S.C. Anderlecht, his former team. He was nicknamed Polle Gazon (Polle is Paul in Brussels dialect, and Gazon means lawn in Dutch and French) due to the large number of fouls committed on him. In 1964, he played in the Belgium-Netherlands match alongside 10 Anderlecht players after the substitution of goalkeeper Delhasse by Jean Trappeniers.
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Van Himst won the Belgian championship 8 times, all of them with Anderlecht, a club for which he started playing his first professional season in 1959–60. With Anderlecht, he scored 233 goals in 457 matches (16 seasons). He then played for RWDM (another Brussels club) in 1975–76 and for Eendracht Aalst (then in the second division) in the following season.
Between 1960 and 1974, "Polle Gazon" scored 30 goals (in 81 matches) for the Belgian national team. This performance made him Belgium's topscorer—along with Bernard Voorhoof—and the fifth most capped player for his country. He made his debut on 19 October 1960 in a match against Sweden and he was part of Belgium's team which qualified for the 1970 World Cup. Van Himst then helped Belgium reach third place at the Euro 1972. He also holds the record of Golden Shoe, awarded to him four times.
As a football manager, Van Himst has worked notably for Anderlecht and the national team which he led to the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was named the Golden Player of Belgium by the Belgian Football Association as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years.
He appeared in the 1981 film Escape to Victory, as Michel Fieu.
He is an ambassador for the Belgian/South-African NGO "Born In Africa" since 2005.
His wife, Arlette Neckebroeck, died on 4 December 2013.