1990? - F.C. Knudde (Page - Dutch KV)

Toon van Driel was born Antonie Marcel van Driel in Amsterdam. He began his career at an advertising agency, but eventually became a steward with the KLM for three and a half-year. During the period of umemployment that followed, he created the soccer gag strip 'FC Knudde'. The series debuted in the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad in 1973. In a land where soccer rules, Toon scored an immediate hit with his dry humor about the best loser soccer players in the world. The quote "Tikkie terug, Jaap" is still a classic remark on soccer fields everywhere. 'Knudde' was also featured as a weekly half-page gag in the comics magazine Eppo from 1977, and as a continuing story in Nieuwe Revu the year after. When Van Driel sold the rights to his comic to publisher De Vrijbuiter in 1979, he left most of the artwork to his assistant Ray Nicholson. Today, the strip still runs in a couple of local papers from Limburg and Noord-Brabant. Van Driel has also commented on current affairs in the soccer world through his daily cartoon on the news site Nu.nl (since 2008) and with comic strips in free newspaper Metro. Text (c) Lambiek