Paul Vaessen
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Paul Leon Vaessen (October 16, 1961 – August 8, 2001) was an English footballer.
Vaessen was born in Gillingham to a footballing family – his father Leon had played for Millwall and Gillingham. A centre-forward, he joined Arsenal in 1977 as an apprentice, and made his debut aged 16 against Lokomotive Leipzig in the UEFA Cup on 27 September 1978. He made his league debut the following year, against Chelsea on May 14, 1979. He turned professional in July the same year, and had a promising start to his Arsenal career, scoring five goals in 13 appearances in 1979-80.
The most famous of these goals was the one Vaessen scored against Juventus at the Stadio Comunale, in the second leg of a Cup Winners' Cup semi-final on April 23, 1980. Arsenal had drawn the first leg 1-1 and thus, trailing on the away goals rule, needed to score to stand any chance of getting to the final; Vaessen came on as a substitute after 75 minutes, and with just two minutes of normal time, he headed home a Graham Rix cross to make the score 2-1 to Arsenal, and put them into the final. It was the first time any English club had beaten Juventus away.
Vaessen's career was blighted by injury; despite such a spectacular start, he was unable to play regularly over the next two seasons; he took a bad knock in a North London derby match against Tottenham Hotspur and had to undergo surgery on his knee. After missing the whole of 1982-83, he was forced to retire from the game in summer 1983, aged only 21. In all, he scored 9 goals in 39 matches for Arsenal.
Arsenal did little to help Vaessen after he left football; he was left, in his own words, "on the scrapheap". Vaessen performed a variety of jobs, such as postman and also worked on a construction site, but by this time had also became a drug addict. He became a petty criminal to feed his heroin habit and was regularly in court. After one drug deal went wrong, was stabbed six times. Although he recovered and made several attempts to kick his habit, he continually relapsed; an attempt to train as a physiotherapist failed, and Vaessen became increasingly disabled by the injuries he incurred as a player. In August 2001 he was found dead in his bathroom; a post mortem found he had a high level of drugs in his bloodstream, and the coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death. In contrast with his famous goal against Juventus, his death attracted little attention in the national press.
[edit] References
- Harris, Jeff & Hogg, Tony (ed.) (1995). Arsenal Who's Who. Independent UK Sports. ISBN 1-899429-03-4.
- The terrible death of a forgotten hero. The Guardian. Retrieved on April 6, 2006.
