Pim Mulier
Willem Johan Herman Mulier, known as Pim Mulier was one of the leading figures in the sporting history of the Netherlands.
He was a co-founder of the oldest football club still in existence in the Netherlands, Koninklijke HFC in 1879, and the founder of the first tennis club in the Netherlands in 1884. He also organized the first athletics competition in 1886 and he was the founder of the Dutch Football and Athletics Association in 1889, which became NVB within a few years when athletics was abandoned, much to his sorrow. In 1890 he ice skated past eleven cities in Friesland, which became a precursor to the Elfstedentocht, and he even designed the medal for participation himself. In 1891, Mulier, with the assistance of Charles Goodman Tebbutt, introduced bandy to the Netherlands and subsequently also introduced hockey, which emerged from that bandy. He was also involved in the founding of the International Skating Union, of which he was President from 1892 until 1895. Mulier was the major pioneer in establishing and promoting cricket and football in the Netherlands as he founded clubs in both sports. He was the first chairman of the Football Association, the Athletics Association, and of Koninklijke HFC, and the first secretary of the Dutch Association for Physical Education. Mulier was also instrumental in organizing events within various sports, such as the Eleven Cities Skating Tour in Friesland and the International Four Days Marches Nijmegen, which are currently among the largest sporting events in the Netherlands. He also played a major role in the founding of the Dutch Olympic Committee in 1912.
Besides being a sports pioneer, he was also known as an expert art collector, skilled draftsman, interior designer, painter, illustrator, journalist, language expert, and expert in the field of inland fishing. The importance of his work and his appreciation for it is evidenced by the numerous awards bestowed on him by governments, organizations, and associations, such as the Order of the Netherlands Lion and the Silver Carnations from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds for the propaganda and related organizational work for many branches of sport.
Early life
Willem Johan Herman Mulier was born on 10 March 1865 in the Frisian town of Witmarsum, and he grew up in a well-to-do, respectable family in Friesland. His father, Tjepke Mulier, was the last grietman in 1850–51 and a mayor of Wûnseradiel from 1851 until 1867. Although born in Witmarsum, Mulier preferred to pronounce his last name in French, since his ancestors, called Oste des Muliers, came from the Roubaix area of France, near Lille in 1570, where they can be traced back as far as in 1319. An ancestor of the family, Jan Mulier, fought alongside Louis I, Prince of Condé, in the French Wars of Religion in the 16th century.The family lived in his father's office at Aylva State in Tjepke's birthplace of Witmarsum until he was two years old, when they moved to Haarlem after his father failed to be re-elected as the mayor of Wûnseradiel. In 1869, his father founded the IJsclub Haarlem in Omstreken and in that same winter he instructed his servant and housekeeper to put the four-year-old Pim on skates in the ditch in front of the house to train speed skating together with his older brother Pieter and a house boy. From an early age, Pim was passionate about sports. He practiced a lot of them while growing up and thus developed into an all-around athlete who competes in different sports such as football, skating, running, cycling, tennis, cricket, and bandy. He also attended the gymnasium in Haarlem.
After completing primary school, Mulier was sent to England to complete his studies there, doing so in a college at Ramsgate. He later graduated from a trade school in Lübeck and worked for some time in the timber trade in Scandinavia and also traveled through Russia on behalf of a plant bulb grower. During this time he learned several languages, from which he later benefited as a sports official. While studying in Sweden, he learned to hunt with the Sámi and to ski, and he even improved some of their best ski times.
Mulier was the youngest of five children, two of whom died in infancy. All three Mulier children also worked as draftsmen and attended art schools, and likewise, his sister Eldina later became a respected artist and had her own studio, while Mulier himself trained in painting and drawing under the guidance of Ferdinand Oldewelt. Afterwards, he was engaged in making illustrations for Eigen Haard and Elsevier, among others. The subjects of his paintings and illustrations revolved around landscape, portrait, history, and cityscape.
Sporting career
Football
Pim Mulier had his first contact with football while studying at Ramsgate in England, and he quickly developed an interest in the sport as he become one of the best youth players of the college. Mulier became so fascinated by this sport that upon his return to Haarlem in 1879, he taught his friends the rules of football. Later that year, on 15 September, when he was aged just 14 years and 185 days, Mulier initiated the foundation of the oldest football club still in existence in the Netherlands, as he co-founded Haarlemsche Football Club with a number of peers, doing it so as a fourteen-year-old schoolboy. Mulier then found a meadow in the Koekamp that seemed suitable for football and thus he wrote a letter to the mayor of Haarlem to ask permission to use it to play football with his club, an unprecedented initiative in the Netherlands at the time. After negotiations were held, the mayor gave them permission to use it "as a wrestling arena for Pim Mulier and his companions", and he used the term "wrestling arena" because initially, the members of HFC played football according to the rugby rules of the game, but from 1883 onwards, it was mainly football according to English rules. The surface of the Koekamp, where their "wrestling arena" was located, was uneven and there were a few trees in the middle of the field, but they just got used to it and played around it. In 1886 he organized the first football match within the German borders.Mulier became the leader of the club "as a matter of course", and his fellow campaigners called him meneer Mulier. Mulier would later become HFC's honorary president and patron. On 10 April 1894, he was the first player of Koninklijke HFC to play in the then unofficial Netherlands national football team in a friendly match against a ragtag team called Maidstone FC, scoring twice in a 4–3 win. In 1895 he earned a second cap for bondselftal, as the Dutch national team was called until its official inception in 1905.
In addition to football and speed skating, Mulier also played tennis, track and field, and bandy. He also practiced billiards, cricket, and hunting, and was a lover of fishing.
Athletics
In 1885, Pim trained until he could cover the distance between the Haarlemmer Poort in Amsterdam and the Amsterdamse Poort in Haarlem within an hour. In 1886 Pim was at the basis of the first 'official' athletics competition in the Netherlands, which was just a running race held on the grounds behind the Rijksmuseum on 16 December. It was therefore almost inevitable that he became the first chairman of the Dutch Football and Athletics Association, which was co-founded by him on 8 December 1889, and he led NVAB for almost three years. In 1886 he became Dutch champion in the 350 meters and two years later he won the mile event in Ostend. During the first athletics competitions organized by NVAB in 1891, he became the Dutch champion in the quarter mile.The NVAB kept prospering, but when both branches of sport started to develop, he could no longer keep up with both of them, and thus, the NVAB fell apart in September 1895 and continued only as a football association, while the Dutch Athletic Association was founded in 1896 at Pim's insistence. By the end of the 19th century, physical education was based on the German model, which emphasized gymnastics and physical exercises. Many people, including Mulier, did not like that, so he set up his own sports clubs, such as the NVAB, NVB, and NAB, which were mostly based on the English model, which he had experienced while studying there. Also in the 1890s, Mulier was regularly asked to act as interim chairman of various sports associations, leaving one chairman position for the other. When the NVB faced organizational difficulties, he took up the chairmanship again, until he found a capable successor in Jasper Warner from Zwolle in 1897.
Skating
On 26 February 1888, he and his friend Klaas Pander participated in the International Distance Trial for Amateurs, which was held between Haarlem and Leiden on the Leidsche Trekvaart, which means that about thirty kilometers had to be driven. It was the first long-distance skating competition ever held and Mulier was beaten only by Pander, who drove 3 minutes and 15 seconds faster than his friend. Mulier then participated in the very first edition of the World Allround Speed Skating Championships in 1889, and did it again in 1891, with both editions being held in Amsterdam and both having an unofficial status as the first official edition only came in 1893. In 1890, during the long and harsh winter of 1890–91, the 25-year-old Mulier become the first man to ride the so-called Frisian Elfstedentocht, which is completing a skating tour along the eleven Frisian cities, something that he achieved in just 12 hours and 55 minutes, an unofficial record for a long time. This organized tour would eventually become an organized competition in 1909, partly on the initiative of Mulier himself. Remarkably, he was not present in the inaugural tournament in 1909 and was also absent from the roll call in 1912, but he participated in the third edition of the Elfstedentocht, on 27 January 1917, at the age of 51, and he was able to complete it, thus achieving the cross that he himself had designed in 1909. Later that day, he gave a speech during the award ceremony and carried out the kick-off with Janna van der Weg, who was the only woman to complete the tour.As a great skating enthusiast, Mulier was thus involved in the establishment of the International Skating Union in 1892, and was elected as its first chairman, a position he served until 1895, when he was replaced by the Swedish Viktor Balck. During the establishment of the ISU, fixed skating distances were established so that international competition was possible. This is how the 1893 World Allround Speed Skating Championships, which was the first official world speed skating championship, was organized in Amsterdam on the ice rink behind the Rijksmuseum, near the exact same grounds where he had helped organize the first 'official' athletics competition in the Netherlands in 1886. The success of the 1893 Skating championships exceeded expectations and more than 125 years later, the World Allround Championships still exist in exactly the same format as in 1893: with a four-Athlon event on the 500, 1500, 5000, and 10,000 meters. This makes it the oldest surviving World Cup of any type in the world.