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Fullname: Derk Boerrigter
aka: Sicknote
Born: 16 Oct 1986
Birthplace: Oldenzaal, Netherlands
Signed: 29 July 2013 (from Ajax est £2-3m/€2-3m)
Left: 4 April 2016 (early termination, by mutual consent)
Position: Winger, Midfielder
Debut: Celtic 2-1 Ross County, League, 03 Aug 2013
Squad No: 11
Internationals: none
Biog
Boerrigter arrived at Celtic in the summer of 2013 as a high-profile purchase. The recent losses of Wanyama and Hooper meant that Celtic needed a player to appease dispirited fans, and so Boerrigter had something to live up to. He wasn’t to even come close.
Prior to Celtic, he’d spent a disproportionate amount of time out of the Ajax first team, and comically he had been given a nickname of ‘sicknote‘ by certain fans of the Dutch side. To those Dutch fans it probably didn’t surprise them that in his Celtic debut (a 2-1 victory over Ross County in the league) he was taken off with an ankle injury before the first half had even ended, and he was out for the next few matches.
In fairness, his appearances at Ajax were limited due to injuries from back problems, and on his Celtic debut he’d actually had a very good game and was very unlucky not to score. His injury was an unfortunate incident too that can just happen.
Yet he soon became the forgotten man at Celtic. Despite being given repeat opportunities to reboot his Celtic career, he rarely performed memorably and there is little to write home about. If the team had simply played a man down, then too often no one would have noticed much difference. Too often injured it was as if it was already playing out as pre-scripted by the sceptical supporters his previous club. The Celtic management should have paid more heed to them in retrospect.
In March 2014 he stated in the papers his frustrations:
“Celtic’s current tactics don’t work to my advantage.
“The manager has asked me if I can eventually play on the left side of midfield in a Gareth Bale-type role and I like the sound of that. In recent weeks the team has been winning virtually every time and I have been a regular substitute.
“But it is my intention to get into the starting line-up in the foreseeable future. If that doesn’t happen I will have to go and knock on the manager’s door and we will need to talk.
“I have not come over here to sit on the bench. When I made my debut everyone, including the manager, raved about me. Sadly I’ve not got to play many games. I don’t agree with those who say I am not cut out for the physical football they play over here.”
On the one hand he sounded eager on the other he had to prove it himself, and he had been given a fair number of chances, even a second run of games under Deila the following season. Trying to make out a case for his defence on just 45 minutes of play from his debut was just plain daft. Why Celtic should adjust the team to suit him didn’t sound sensible in light of his lack of appearances.
You could point out that at least the disappointment over Boerrigter wasn’t shown on the terraces. You’d have expected he’d have been booed off the pitch by the less charitable, but thankfully not. Maybe the problem is more that people were laughing about him rather than raging at the whole predicament.
Boerrigter actually made just three appearances for Celtic the following season, before ignominiously picking up a two-match ban for unlawfully winning a penalty in a win over St Johnstone in August (i.e. he had dived). It was unnecessary but turned out to be a little hypocritical in that worse offenses were being made regularly elsewhere without any retrospective disciplinary action being taken.
It was all a shambles. A somewhat frustrating story.
When it was announced that he was to be out of football with another injury two months into the season in October 2014, journalists and supporters across social media all remarked that they genuinely didn’t realise that he was still at the club which was humiliating enough for all attached to him on the playing side. As one wit was to put it, he was “forgotten, but never gone“.
Celtic should have paid heed to the Ajax fans on his arrival. He lived up to the sicknote tag and gathered further unflattering epithets along the way for his time out the first team. Nothing personal against him, but a lost place in the squad. He was not to show the desired potential talent he was believed by some to harbour.
In many ways, he is going to be ranked as one of the poorest transfer moves Celtic have ever done, and there have admittedly been some very poor transfers in the club’s history.
Later, he tried to pin blame on the medical staff for his predicament, but nobody was convinced. He also admitted he stayed for the money rather than leave early which in fairness he is entitled to do so. One further comment to Dutch paper Voetball Inside was dismissed by all who were around at the time:
“They destroyed my career a bit by letting me play football with an injury while I indicated several times that it is not right.”
He was to leave Celtic prematurely before the end of the 2015/16 season, and he was to be better remembered for a satirical song by some wit on YouTube that compared his manhood to ‘a boa constrictor‘ (as his name rhymed with it for the lyrics). All in jest, and if little else, that made the Celtic supporters all chuckle.
Playing Career
| APPEARANCES | LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 2013-14 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 23 |
| Goals | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2014-15 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Goals | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015-16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Goals | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 16 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 26 |
| Goals | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Honours with Celtic
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Articles
Celtic to sign Ajax sicknote Derk Boerrigter for €3.5m
(Voetbal International)
Sunday, July 28th, 2013
Celtic to sign Ajax sicknote Derk Boerrigter for €3.5m (Voetbal International)According to Dutch website Voetbal International, Celtic have completed the €3.5 million signing of Ajax winger Derk Boerrigter.
Boerrigter, 26 years old, played 45 games for Ajax scoring 12 goals between 2011-2013.
Boerrigter is poised to pen a 3-year deal at Celtic Park, provided the Dutchman passes a medical.
Should the deal come to completion, naysayers will claim that Celtic have signed a dud. Boerrigter carries the terrible reputation of being a glorified impact sub who is injured far too often for comfort.
Boerrigter has suffered from back problems in the past few seasons, and some doubt whether the winger (who doesn’t like to defend too much) can cut it at the higher levels of European football.
That said, in the SPL, Boerrigter should score a hatful of goals as well as registering a ton of assists.
Derk Boerrigter scored 5 and chalked up 4 assists last season for Ajax, starting 24 times in all competitions.
Derk Boerrigter: Celtic medical team ended my career
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/sport/celtic/15713568.Derk_Boerrigter__Celtic_medical_team_ended_my_career/
Mark Walker
FORGOTTEN Celtic flop Derk Boerrigter has blamed the Parkhead medical staff for ending his career by failing to diagnose his broken ankle after finally breaking his silence on his Hoops nightmare.
The former Ajax winger cost Celtic a staggering £3 million in July 2013, before he was quietly released from his four-year contract in 2016.
His spell in Glasgow was an expensive error after making just eight starts, which worked out at an incredible £587,500 per start for his transfer fee and hefty £12,000-per-week wages.
However, Boerrigter – who never kicked a ball again after his exit from Celtic – has put the blame for his calamitous spell in Scotland squarely at the door of the club.
Boerrigter said: “Ajax loaned Isaac Cuenca from Barcelona and put me out of their team. He cost Ajax about £100,000 per game so had to play.
“I was furious and decided I would join another club. My career at Celtic didn’t work out because of silly injuries.
“Those injury problems actually started at Ajax, but at Celtic things went badly wrong.
“Celtic then stuffed me full of painkillers, so I could keep playing.
“Then it turned out that it was ultimately a bone fracture in my ankle.
I really blame Celtic’s medical staff for that. It was a real shame what happened.”
An injury on Boerrigter’s Hoops debut set the tone for his stay. He made just five starts in the league, one in the League Cup and two in Europe.
Celtic invested £4.7 million on the wide man, for which they got one goal in return – against Aberdeen in 2013.
Of his eight starts, Boerrigter played for a total of 512 minutes in the league for Celtic.
That meant it cost Celtic £9,180 for every minute he played in the Premiership.
Ex-Celtic dud Derk Boerrigter makes admission
http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2018/07/23/ex-celtic-dud-derk-boerrigter-makes-admission/
Derk Boerrigter has admitted that financial gain was the only reason that he stayed with Celtic for so long.The injury-prone Dutch winger joined Celtic for £3 million [The Daily Record] in 2013 and remains as one of the Hoops’ most notable flops in recent memory, having played only 514 minutes of first-team football.
Boerrigter, who was earning £12,000 per week in Glasgow [The Record], left the Scottish Premiership giants in April 2016 after his contract was terminated by mutual consent.Prior to his release, the 31-year-old hadn’t kicked a ball for Celtic since August 2014.The former Ajax man, who is yet to sign for another club since leaving Scotland, has now admitted to Exprofs that he played hardball with the Bhoys because the money was too good to leave.”They wanted to get rid of me,” he told Exprofs. “But I stayed and, I say this honestly, it was because of the money. The salary was too good to give up, and especially if you see what my club history was.
“I played football in the Jupiler League [Dutch second tier], not just for an apple and an egg, but you will not get rich from it.”We still negotiated, Celtic wanted to give me three months’ salary, but I wanted something more and that did not materialise. Then I stayed and got all 12 [months].”It’s a very frank admission and Boerrigter deserves credit for his honesty, if nothing else.Such situations invariably crop up at other clubs where highly-paid players refuse to leave for monetary reasons, but at least the former Celtic dud admitted that was his primary motivation.