Willem (Willy. Wil) Slager born in 1941 in Ede near Arnhem. His family was evacuate to Friesland in 1944 when the Allied launched operation ‘Market Garden’ with bitterly fighting around Arnhem.
He arrived in Australia in 1957 and settled in the suburb of Elizabeth in Adelaide. Het got a job at the Holden factory in town where he worked for 25 years. In 1958 he joined the Dutch floorball club Orange. Adam Muyt in his book Clogball states that as a striker he was known as ‘het kanon’ the canon, he was a top scorer often ending up in the annual top scorer rankings.
At Orange he met his future wife Nel, when in 1963 the Adelaide Croatia Soccer Club offered him a generous transfer fee, he decided to take it as that would assist them the couple in their wedding plans.
It was in his first season that Adelaide Croatia got a taste for just how good Slager was. Slager won the golden boot in 1963 and would go on to become Adelaide Croatia’s all-time top goal scorer with over 150 goals in 300 games, in a career spanning from 1963-1975.
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