Jan de Natris

Jan de Natris came from a workers’ family. He started in football with the teams Swift and Blauw Wit, before joining Ajax Amsterdam in 1914, but it took him another three years to become a regular. Unfortunately, he missed the decisive games during Ajax’ first two championship seasons in 1918 and 1919. During his time with Ajax he earned his first 10 caps from 1920-22. De Natris played the first three matches of the Olympic tournament in 1920, but was then in the center of a mutiny on the Dutch football team. A group of players refused to return to their primitive cabins on the naval ship Hollandia, where the Dutch athletes were accommodated. Four “ringleaders” were to be sent home including Jan de Natris, but the team threatened to go on strike for the pending game against Spain. To avoid cancellation of the bronze medal game the four players were pardoned but De Natris and Jaap Bulder were not considered.

After 1922 De Natris played one season each for De Spartaan and again for Blauw Wit, before he returned to Ajax in 1925. After another two seasons with Ajax he joined Vitesse Arnhem, where he played three seasons. Subsequently, he returned to Ajax again for his last season, finishing his active career in 1929. Internationally, he won another 13 caps for a total of 23 including another four in the Olympic tournament at Paris in 1924. The last one also came in 1924 during his time with Vitesse Arnhem. For the national team he scored five goals.

Jan de Natris was also an excellent sprinter with a personal best of 11.1 sec over 100 m, and was one of the first Dutch players to advocate for a professional football league. His various changes of clubs during his active career nourished speculations about payments. In 1953, he acted briefly as a technical advisor to the break-away Dutch Professional Football Association (NBVB), before it was merged with the Dutch football federation. De Natris worked as a travelling salesman for plumbing technology and later worked in his wife’s tobacco shop in Amsterdam.