It was then that a TV station in the lowlands country tracked down Toon ‘Tony’ Effern (Third from the left on the back row above) and set out his unique life story – including wartime adventures of tribulation, bravery and history-making.

By the time the cameras came to chronicle his past, Tony was a man of 90 years, grey-haired and clutching a scrapbook of sporting memories – some of them intriguingly related to Chelsea Football Club.

However, the inside-forward started his career at Haarlem and was about to enter his mid-twenties athletic prime when war came to neutral Holland and Adolf Hitler’s forces invaded on 10 May 1940. Tony had already been called up, working as a second-class stoker on a tug boat, but he found the Nazi occupation intolerable and decided to join British forces taking the fight to them.

The first attempt almost cost him his life – the boat he was escaping in was bombed and sunk and Tony narrowly avoided death.

Remarkably, he eventually decided to trek across land to France and find passage across the Channel there. By the time he was safely on board a ship bound for Britain the soles of his shoes were completely worn through.

In London Tony joined the sizeable ex-pat Dutch community and was deployed as an air-mechanic in the Royal Netherlands Navy, which had relocated to the capital in 1940.

The navy in exile would play a crucial role transporting troops and escorting convoys during the D-Day landings. However, five months earlier, on 17 January 1944, Tony was selected for a Netherlands Services side that played their Belgium counterparts on a Red Cross benefit match at Crystal Palace.

From a broader perspective the most important event at the friendly international was the first agreement between trade officials for what would become the Benelux economic treaty between Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.

But in football terms it proved opportune that before kick-off both teams were introduced to English dignitaries, including A V Alexander, MP and First Lord of the Admiralty.

Alexander (dubbed Winston Churchill’s favourite Socialist), who had organised the fixture, considered football ‘a unifying instrument in the future of the world.’

He also happened to be a supporter and vice-president of Chelsea FC, so straight after Effern’s two-goals (both headers) in the 3-2 Netherlands victory he contacted the secretary-manager at Stamford Bridge, Willie Birrell.

Trusting Alexander’s judgment, Birrell obtained clearance for Tony to debut at home to Charlton on 22 January and the inside-forward justified that faith by scoring past goalie Sam Bertram in a 5-2 comeback win.

In the 2004 tv interview Tony claimed no great artistry for his historic first goal in English football by a Netherlander. ‘It was close to goal,’ he recalled. ‘My teammate passed it to me and I put it in.’

The British press were hugely impressed by the first Dutchman to make a splash in English football and more praise followed when he grabbed a brace in the Blues’ 8-0 demolition of Aldershot at Stamford Bridge a week later.

Man United star Charlie Mitten guested in the centre of attack alongside the Dutchman and pre-war Chelsea star ‘Ten-goal’ Joe Payne weighed in too – just the four goals this time. Tony later told his family these were among the happiest days of his life and he fell in love with the Bridge.

But just as a mixture of fortitude and happenstance that had made Tony a remarkable pioneer in English football the machinations of war stole away his finest hours.

Preparations for the invasion of the Allied invasion of Europe demanded all hands and, sadly, Tony’s commanding officer demanded he focus on his job with no distractions.

Of course his sporting career was trivial compared to the greater challenge of ridding the world of fascism and Tony became a flower destined to bloom largely unseen, forced to focus solely on his military work and then repatriated once the war was won.

His unique contribution was also a victim of circumstance.

Professional English football had been suspended from 1939 for the duration of the conflict and in its place came smaller regionalised leagues which drew crowds to watch guest stars billeted locally but remains ‘unofficial’ and largely ignored as far as statistical records are concerned.

So the name Tony Effern, let alone his groundbreaking role, was lost in time.

A strong desire to return to England in peacetime was quickly and understandably quashed by wife Johanna who had not seen her globetrotting husband for five years.

Instead, he rejoined Haarlem for a few brief years and even scored six times in a 7-4 thrashing of Hermes.

His skills as a KLM mechanic rather than a footballer then delivered a salary until retirement and his unique place in English sporting history was forgotten.

The Dutch TV interview in 2004 helped remedy that but Tony lived just one more year to retell his exceptional tale.

The Netherlander always spoke fondly of his fleeting Chelsea career and what might have been had he been able to stay. He must have been proud when Ken Monkou became the Blues’ first official Dutch player and when Ruud Gullit, a graduate of his old club Haarlem, represented and managed the Blues.

His ashes remained in an urn until his daughter Anneke approached Chelsea in 2021 about the possibility of scattering them at his beloved Bridge, where he had the distinction of scoring three times in two games.

Unfortunately, with the critical timing that helped and also hindered his football career, the plan scuppered as the UK was in a coronavirus lockdown. But when people now talk of the Dutch footballers to play for Chelsea, Tony Effern's name will rightly get a mention.