Just cap Pat: The curious case of Pat Van Den Hauwe

As Cymru prepare to take on familiar foes Belgium once again on 9th June, Iwan Williams explains how a Belgian Cockney came to represent Wales

Dendermonde is a small Flemish city of around 45 thousand people, located an hour’s drive northwest of Brussels. As you’d expect, it’s not the birthplace of many Welsh football players. But there’s one exception: Pat Van Den Hauwe. Born in Dendermonde in 1960 to an English mother and Belgian father,

Pat was born in Belgium but raised in Bermondsey, south London. Whilst he may be Belgian born, Pat’s affection for the nation is somewhat lacking. In his own words “I left Belgium when I was five years old and have no memories of the place whatsoever. Given what I have been told about how boring Belgium is, maybe that’s not such a bad thing!”

Pat’s father René was a professional goalkeeper for KAV Dendermonde and Sparta Buggenhout. With a natural talent for the game, Pat spent a year with Arsenal as a teenager. He was described as a “sterspeler” (star player) in a 1974 newspaper article from Aalst, Dendermonde’s neighbouring city.

Everton

Pat joined Birmingham City as a youngster, and played over 120 games for the club between 1978 and 1984. But his association with Everton shaped his career and launched his Cymru career too.

In his debut 1984-85 season, Pat won the First Division title and UEFA Cup Winners Cup with Everton.

He played in the 3-1 final win over Rapid Wien in Rotterdam in May 1985. He won the First Division title again in 1986-87, scoring a crucial goal at Norwich (one of only two Everton goals) to clinch the title. In total he played 201 games during Everton’s golden period under Howard Kendall. A key part of Everton’s success, Pat entered the Everton Hall of Fame in 2020.

As former Chairman Bill Kenwright said “He was born in Belgium, has a cockney accent and played for Wales. But he is an Everton legend.”

Pat left Everton for Tottenham in 1989, playing over one hundred games for the London club. He left Tottenham for Millwall in 1993, returning to his Bermondsey roots. He spent two years at the club before ending his playing days in South Africa, representing Hellenic and Wynberg St Johns.

Living in South Africa for his retirement, Pat was assistant manager at FC Cape Town for one season in 2007.

A tough tackling, uncompromising left back who could also play at centre back, Pat earnt the respect of his teammates and the support of the Goodison faithful. He was called “Psycho Pat” by the supporters, and indeed used this nickname for his autobiography.

He certainly caught the eye of teammates Neville Southall and Kevin Ratcliffe. This was a time when British players born outside of the UK had options for international football: they could represent England, Scotland, Cymru or Northern Ireland.

And they didn’t need family connections with any of those countries: as Pat mentions in his book, “No parent or grandparent—or even great grandparents—of mine were Welsh. In fact…no members of my immediate family had even set foot on Welsh soil”.

It was the same route that George Berry (born in Germany), Jeremy Goss (born in Cyprus), Eric Young (born in Singapore) and John Robinson (born in Zimbabwe) took to represent Cymru.

Nev and Kev, backed by Ian Rush, recommended Pat to Cymru manager Mike England and persuaded him that he could make a real contribution to the national team, and that was that.

And Pat really wanted to play for Cymru, having turned down offers from England’s Bobby Robson and Belgium’s Guy Thys. His father advised him to choose Belgium, his mother advised him to choose England, so “being an awkward bugger, I opted for Wales!”.

Whilst Pat wasn’t impressed with Thys’ pitch (the Belgian side were a supporting cast to playmaker Enzo Scifo), he was very impressed with Mike England’s desire to involve him. And the pursuit of Pat led to tensions between Mike and Bobby Robson.

National service

In his autobiography, Neville Southall’s candid memories of Pat’s inclusion are wonderful “Had he chosen Belgium, Pat might have ended up going to a couple of World Cups, but at the time assuming Belgian nationality carried the burden of national service, which he wasn’t too keen on…To be fair, we (Southall and Ratcliffe) probably harassed him a bit, but I think when he heard that the social scene was better with the Welsh side that swung it for him”.

Pat’s recollection is similar. In his book he states “I thought Wales were probably just a few players away from being a really good side who could match Europe’s elite. If I could help, I was bang up for it as it seemed a far better bet than playing for Mr Guy Thys…It was also hard to forget that there was a chance I’d be square bashing, polishing boots and belt buckles as well as shooting bullets out of World War II rifles at tin cans all week.”

It was a case of ‘lose one, gain one’ for Cymru from Everton, as Kevin Sheedy, born in Builth Wells in 1959, opted for the Republic of Ireland rather than the land of his birth.

And what a debut. Pat played in the 3-0 win against Spain in Wrexham in April 1985, the game best remembered for Mark Hughes’ superhuman scissor kick goal.

Pat lined up in defence that evening with his Everton teammate Kevin Ratcliffe, Neil Slatter and David Phillips. He also played in the 1-1 with Scotland at Ninian Park in September 1985, a game best remembered for the tragic death of Jock Stein and a very controversial penalty awarded to Scotland (“I…to this day, feel the referee cheated us” was Pat’s honest view).

Between 1985 and 1989, and in line with his Everton career, Pat won thirteen Cymru caps. He experienced a few defeats against Hungary, Denmark, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (a 2-1 defeat in Swansea in 1988), and a few wins after the Spain game against Finland (a 4-0 win in Wrexham in 1987), Denmark, and the impressive 1-0 friendly win over Italy in Brescia in June 1988. And despite not knowing the words, the national anthem “gave me goose bumps”.

His final cap was the 2-0 friendly defeat to Sweden in April 1989. Injured in the 3-2 FA Cup Final defeat to Liverpool in May 1989, Pat informed the FAW that he was unavailable for the West Germany game the following week.

Assessed

Manager Terry Yorath insisted that he visited Cardiff to be assessed by the Welsh medical team, and Pat’s reply was, in his own words, “basically I told him to **** off, and he replied that I would never play for Wales again”.

By his own admission, Pat and Terry didn’t get on, and Pat could have won more caps had he not pulled out of a few games e.g. friendlies in Saudi Arabia, Canada and Israel. His other recollection was that “everything seemed to be done on the cheap” compared with Everton’s game preparations.

A brief but impressive international career, and by ending his Cymru career in 1989 he was denied the opportunity of playing against Belgium, the land of his birth, a year later (a 3-1 win in Cardiff).

Pat’s off the field issues are well documented, with alcohol and drug addiction issues, battles with depression, three marriages and links with the criminal underworld in London and South Africa following his playing days.

Incidents in Malta (travelled but did not play in Cymru’s friendly win in June 1988 when he picked up a non-playing “injury” after a night out) and Cape Town much later (“I was one slip…away from committing murder”) drew attention, and a ‘colourful character’ he certainly was. Labelled both “legend” and “madman”, Pat’s view was “I think I am neither”.

On the pitch, some would argue that the “Psycho Pat” tag was unhelpful and that he had more to offer than simply a hard tackling, no nonsense defender. Neville Southall mentions that “I always found him to be nice as pie, never a threat to anybody…He’s got a reputation of being a hard man but I just didn’t see that in him…Pat was openly aggressive in his game…but I never found him to be stupidly aggressive”.

Connections

Cymru-Belgium football connections run deep. Cymru internationals Nick Deacy (Beringen), James Lawrence (Anderlecht), Andy King (OH Leuven) and Rabbi Matondo (Cercle Brugge) represented Belgian clubs. As mentioned by Luke James in his recent “’eternal marvel’ of Belgian football” article, Charles Griffiths of Oswestry, who had a Welsh father, managed Royale Union Saint-Gilloise in 1922/23 and 1933-35. He was also part of the Belgium coaching team for the 1920 Summer Olympics and managed Berchem Sport in 1925.

Although he spent the vast majority of his managerial career in the Netherlands, Caernarfon born Barry Hughes’ last club was Beerschot in the late eighties.

Former Cymru manager Chris Coleman is currently managing OH Leuven, whilst current Cymru manager Craig Bellamy was youth team coach and assistant to Vincent Kompany at Anderlecht between 2019 and 2021. Club Brugge manager Nicky Hayen managed Haverfordwest County in 2021/22.

In club football, Cardiff City played Standard Liège in the sixties and nineties, whilst Wrexham played Anderlecht in the seventies. TNS gave Anderlecht a good game in Brussels in 2010 before a certain Romelu Lukaku made an impact. Cymru women have played Belgium thirteen times, with the last game in 2022.

The 9th June World Cup qualifier will be the eighteenth game between Cymru and Belgium men. The record to date reads as such: Cymru with five wins, Belgium with seven wins, and five draws. The first games took place in 1949 (a 3-1 defeat in Liège and a 5-1 win in Cardiff), and then nothing until 1990. Six games were played in the nineties, with the next game taking place in 2012. Since that game in September 2012, there have been eight additional games. And none more iconic than Cymru 3 Belgium 1 on that magical Euros night in Lille on 1st July 2016.

In October, both Cymru Under 21s and senior team will host the Belgians. It seems the footballing Gods are determined to keep the Cymru-Belgium connection going, and with a 25% chance of landing Belgium in next Autumn’s Nations League, some Cymru fans are already preparing for the inevitable: the next instalment of Belgium away! This will not please a ‘bored’ Kevin De Bruyne.

Fear

And – somewhat confusingly with his Cockney accent – Pat Van Den Hauwe will always be a special connection between the nations, a player who gave his all, put fear into his opponents and made a significant contribution to the national team in the mid to late eighties, helping to bridge Dendermonde with Denbigh and beyond.

Now back on Merseyside working for Everton in the Community, Pat remains grateful for his brief Cymru career, stating “to this day, I am extremely proud to have played for Wales”.

For that, we should thank the Cymru and Everton legends Southall and Ratcliffe. And Belgian national service (which ended in 1993) too perhaps. You might have Jean-Claude Van Damme, Belgium, but Cymru will always have Pat Van Den Hauwe.