123: Rafael van der Vaart, Holland, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, England Collector Binder

This week Emlyn Jones is stepping up to the oche with a story about a multi-talented Dutchman who did a lot more than win a Teasmade or narrowly miss out on speedboat ownership during a fascinating career. As an aside Emlyn and I once spent an entire day traversing South Wales to find a pub with a dartboard. Thanks to The Butterfly Collector in Barry and apologies for the several small holes in the wall. Over to Emlyn.

I am an avid fan, and fairly mediocre player, of darts. Between that and the multitude of great football accounts online, there's always a fair amount of darts and football nonsense in my Twitter feed as I scroll through. It's unusual for the two to combine, hence why I was surprised to see that former England manager and wine enthusiast Sam Allardyce played in the early qualifying rounds of the 2003 UK Darts Open.

This isn't the only example of a footballer trying their hand at other sports; a few months shy of his fiftieth birthday, Paolo Maldini played in a professional tennis tournament. After retirement, Petr Cech took up goal for the Guildford Flames ice hockey team. And there have been a surprising number of footballers also being able to wield a cricket bat; Nigel Martyn, Gary Neville, and Joe Hart have all played to a high level, while a promising youngster for Yeovil and Scunthorpe by the name of Ian Botham apparently followed up his 28 senior games with a couple of games of cricket. The subject of today's article, however, was another player to take up the tungsten, playing in BDO darts events in 2019; Rafael van der Vaart.

Born in Heemskerk in 1983, van der Vaart's family were part of a travelling community called the Woonwagenbewoners, and the young Rafael learned the game on the streets while living in a trailer park. Much like others with humble origins, this helped foster close control and skills, and the renowned Ajax Amsterdam Academy picked him up aged 10. He debuted for the senior side at age 17, and would have five successful seasons in attacking midfield, netting over fifty goals. He was hailed as the new Johan Cruyff, however, made the most of his increased profile, enjoying the nightlife and becoming engaged to famous VJ Sylvie Meis. This led to criticism in the early part of his 2003/04 season, as van der Vaart himself admitted he was overweight and in poor form. He managed to turn his form around, however, and helped the team to the title, before being named captain that summer.

It was rumoured that Ajax teammate, the shy and retiring Zlatan Ibrahimović, wasn't happy with this, and in an international match between the Netherlands and Sweden, Zlatan injured the Dutchman. The bad blood saw Zlatan sold to Juventus a fortnight later, however, upon returning to the side in an unfavoured position on the wing Rafael refused to play in a tie and lost the captaincy. With injuries continuing to afflict him, Ajax decided the time was right for him to move on, and he was on the move to Hamburg. After two strong seasons, finishing as top scorer in his first year before being made captain for the second, there was a lot of interest from abroad, however van der Vaart decided to stay on and scored twelve goals in his third season.

Interest was by now very high, and Rafael was eventually reunited with compatriot and former Ajax teammate Wesley Sneijder at Real Madrid. He started excellently, including a hat trick against Sporting de Gijón, however there were rumours of a fall out with the manager Juande Ramos, and he was used mainly as a substitute in the latter part of the season. In the summer, Madrid were keen to sell, however, Rafael wished to stay in the city as wife Sylvie was undergoing treatment for cancer. He wasn't given a squad number in pre-season, but following player sales ended up back in the side, and scored a number of goals while deputising for the injured Kaká. Despite this, when Tottenham Hotspur offered £8m two hours before the end of the August 2010 transfer window, he chose to join Harry Redknapp's side during an unusually quiet transfer window for 'Arry.

He was a huge hit in North London, top scoring in his first year and matching the record of scoring in five consecutive games for Spurs in his second. He also praised Redknapp's management, and felt he meshed well with the side, however, when Andre Villas-Boas took over and signed Gylfi Sigurdsson from Hoffenheim, van der Vaart decided he would leave, returning to Hamburg. He later said that this was a major regret, as Hamburg would battle with relegation during his second spell, but that he moved after being a substitute in early season games for Spurs. His first season back in Germany was hindered by injury, and as mentioned, Hamburg struggled in the relegation zone for much of his second spell. In 2015, Hamburg declined to offer a new contract, and van der Vaart returned to Spain to play for Real Betis for a year, but managed only 296 minutes of game time before leaving.

Having left wife Sylvie following her infidelity with a pilot, Rafael settled down with professional Dutch handball player Estavana Polman. With the couple expecting their first child, van der Vaart moved to Denmark where Polman was playing, signing for FC Midtjylland. He started strongly but found himself out of the side, and following a stint with Esbjerg fB, Rafael hung up his boots. It was at this point that he picked up a set of darts, playing in the Denmark Open. He surprised the audience by winning his first game against Thomas Anderson, before falling to the vastly more experienced Mogens Christensen. Van der Vaart is now assistant manager at Esbjerg, but who knows if he might pop up at the oche in the near future – setting up a clash against the wily veteran of the English scene, Big Sam.