Dorus De Vries’ double fault at Wolves

But there is now a different racket sport which is starting to gain traction amongst many former footballers, including, five years on from hanging up his gloves, ex- Wolves goalkeeper Dorus De Vries.

And that is the discipline of padel.

Padel is a racket sport of Mexican origin, generally played as doubles on an enclosed court with walls that are in play, with solid stringless bats and balls with slightly less pressure than the tennis equivalent.

As of last year, there were over 25 million people playing the game across more than 90 countries, including not just De Vries, but also plenty of other former Dutch footballing talent.

The now 43-year-old has already shared a court with Rafael Van Der Vaart, Ronald and Frank De Boer, Wesley Sneijder and Dirk Kuyt. A veritable feast of Netherlands talent who could probably still do a job at the Euros!

Elsewhere, the likes of Lionel Messi, Neymar, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Zinedane Zidane are also self-confessed ‘padelistes’. And the current England squad have been enjoying games in their downtime at their Euro 2024 training base in Blankenhain.

The sport is certainly growing!

“I love it,” says De Vries. “When I first retired and went back home, I played a bit of Footvolley, a mix of beach volleyball and football which is very popular in Brazil.

“Then the pandemic arrived and all that stopped but when things got going again, padel was really taking off.

“A friend of mine has his own padel court, and, I had a couple of games with him, and from there I was addicted.

“There is a really fun group of people who play out here, whether that’s entrepreneurs or former players, and in those situations it’s very much like the dressing rooms from back in the day with the competitive nature and the laughter and the jokes.”

If it is five summers since De Vries officially announced his retirement, it is 11 since he bid farewell to Wolves, after two years which clearly went nothing like he would have hoped or anticipated.

In fact, perhaps unsurprisingly, he now reflects on a “disastrous decision” that he decided to move to Molineux in the first place.

That wasn’t down to him, or indeed anyone else - there is no real blame to be attached to anyone or anything apart from the collective collapse and ultimate mismanagement which took the club into successive relegations from the Premier League to League One.

And for the amiable Dutchman, then 31, his spell with Wolves brought a frustrating and painful interruption to a career which had been travelling on a gradual and upward trajectory up to that moment.

Born in Beverwijk in the province of North Holland, the young De Vries enjoyed playing outfield in his formative footballing days, prior to having a year out to pursue skateboarding and other daring pursuits ahead of becoming a teenager!

But when enticed back to football when his friends moved clubs, he stepped in to accompany a friend’s brother to a goalkeeping promotional day run by Frans Hoek, a pioneer who worked at clubs such as Ajax, Barcelona and Manchester United and has been described as the ‘godfather of goalkeeping’.

The rest is history.

By 16, he was with his first professional club, Telstar, a year later he was travelling with the first team and then joined Den Haag, soon moving from cover to first choice, learning his trade in the Eredivisie, the Dutch first division.