Obituary Jan Kors (*4 nov 1929 – †1 aug 2021)

Of those 91 years, he was a member of VCC for almost 80 years. The first records of Jan’s cricketing achievements date from the middle of the war. Jan was the younger brother of Guus and Leo, who, like him, remained associated with the club for a lifetime and were equally invaluable. From the war years we have found in our archive two photos of Jan as a cricketer and as a football player at TONEGIDO. It is striking that he did that combination with many of his teammates. You were not a member of a club for a while, you played winter and summer sports with your friends and in many cases you did that for decades. It was the basis for friendships for life. At the end of the sixties, that group of friends went first to the second team and then to the veterans for many years.

Jan was a stylish cricketer and was best known for his fast and straight bowling. Together with Guus and Leo, he formed the very successful core of the VCC attack. In our yearbook, we have two pages of the club’s All Time Greats. 661 wickets to 11.68 runs (and 9 for 27 as his best figures), nearly 4,000 runs and 128 catching show how important he was with ball and bat. On and off the field, Jan was a true gentleman.

Jan did much more than play well. Many young cricketers in Voorburg started their careers with Jan (and Guus and others from his generation) as an expert and enthusiastic trainer and team coach. The combination football/cricket was less common then. I did, and that’s how I got Jan as a trainer in the winter around 1970 in TONEGIDO’s A-youth. Those training sessions were concluded with half an hour of goalkeeper training; I remember all too well that those balls also came fast at me.

Football then increasingly gave way to hockey. At Cartouche he became important just as quickly, with the addition that he refereed competitions until a very old age. At VCC, we secretly think that cricket still had a (small) bit more of his passion. But Jan and his family were sports, there must have been hardly any weekends and very few evenings that they didn’t drive to one of the Voorburg fields.

After his last cricket years, Jan became a valued umpire. He stood  in the more important matches of the KNCB. Over the last decades, he and his friend Jan Gestman and their wives became regular supporters of our flagship team. The ‘Jannen’ had their  own place along the boundary. After the death of first their wives and then Jan Gestman it became quiet in that corner. That silence was filled by others for a chat and a drink. It was always striking how much Jan knew about those members: from the past, from now and how their family was doing.

VCC says goodbye to an ‘institute’. Of course because of that membership of almost eighty years, but much more we say goodbye to a person who has left his mark of sportsmanship, friendship and commitment all those years on and around the field. Jan has meant a great deal to generations of Voorburg cricketers, footballers and hockey players in all these facets. Our condolences to his family with this great loss.

Karel Philipsen (with support from Wim Kroes and Piet Mieras)