De Zeeuw finds the right medicine to revive Portsmouth

Nationwide League Dutch defender needs two more years to become doctor but looks set to reach Premiership in few months

"I'm not a typical Dutch footballer," declares Arjan De Zeeuw. He is indeed known for aggressive tackling and aerial power rather than tactical acumen and technical poise, yet the statement would be equally accurate if he omitted his nationality. Plenty of players could be described as a study in infectious enthusiasm. But how many are, like the Portsmouth central defender, studying infectious diseases?

On the average team bus, the reading matter divides along the lines of eight Suns, four Mirrors and a sprinkling of broadsheets. De Zeeuw is not too cerebral to take Southampton's name in vain, but he is occasionally to be found poring over a research paper about smallpox or tuberculosis.

Similarly, most players have no idea whether they will go into management or coaching, local radio or the pub trade when they retire. The man known to all and sundry at the First Division leaders as "H" ("well, it's easier than my proper name") has already decided he will "definitely" resume a career in medicine.

De Zeeuw, who faces Gillingham at Fratton Park today as Portsmouth strive to cement their position as promotion certainties, must complete two more years of medical work before he can join the select band of footballer-doctors. The best known is Socrates, of Brazil, who opened a clinic in his home town after having his fill of World Cups. Another practising medical man, Kevin O'Flanagan, played centre-forward for Arsenal and wing-threequarter for London Irish after the Second World War.

The 32-year-old De Zeeuw's interest stems from his parents, yet there were no GPs or paediatricians in his family. When he was a teenager, his father, a carpenter who later worked in a steel plant before dying of lung cancer, and his mother, a housewife, were concerned that he never made the regional representative sides.

"I was always just on the outside," De Zeeuw recalls. "So they pushed me to do other things. I put a lot of effort into my studies. I did a year of sports science but in the meantime put my name down for medicine. I got into university in Amsterdam for a four-year course which led to my becoming a Master of Medical Science, though it took me more than five because I came to play in England."

During the first year of his degree, he signed for Telstar in the Dutch League. His regime of lectures in the morning and training in the afternoon meant he missed out on the student lifestyle. "I was almost the only one with a car, which was the club's," he says with a hint of regret. "I was always dropping friends off somewhere nice before training.

"I took my textbooks on the team coach to catch up; still do sometimes, but it's hard to concentrate. The Telstar lads tried to nickname me 'The Doc' but it never stuck. I'm not a Socrates. You could see he was clever by the way he played, but you wouldn't necessarily associate a tough defender with wanting to be a doctor.

"Some players say: 'You must be really clever'. But it's all about willpower, sitting down every day to study. There are plenty of intelligent people who've never studied. Look at Merse [Portsmouth's Paul Merson]. He's experienced in life. Guys ask him which horse to back and he says: 'Don't ask me. I lost £2m one season'."

A few Telstar team-mates deemed De Zeeuw's other life worthy of mockery. They are laying bricks now, he says, adding hastily: "No disrespect to builders.

"My academic work has been a stabilising influence. If things go wrong, in contract talks or whatever, I know I won't have to go working as a chimney sweep."

In print, that may smack of arrogance. In person, De Zeeuw is quite the opposite. He has never minded getting his hands dirty, on the pitch or in a hospital. One summer he spent seven weeks as a nurse ("a slave", he laughs), working on the wards or in theatre and doing everything from "helping old people with bowel problems" to assisting specialists in internal medicine or orthopaedic surgery.

Such pursuits went on hold in 1995 when he went full-time with Barnsley. "I came over with my father-in-law. We drove across these moors and it was grey and raining. I said: 'I'm not sure about this'. Next day, the sun was shining and we went to the ground to meet the manager, Danny Wilson. I felt very positive about it.

"In my first full season Barnsley won promotion to the Premiership. Suddenly I'm on Dutch telly playing Liverpool and Manchester United, and people at home are going: 'Who is this guy?'. But we went straight back down.

"When Arsenal beat us 5-0 I marked my countryman Dennis Bergkamp. His first-time lay-offs were so good that after 15 minutes I still hadn't got near the ball. Next time it was played in, I just took him out and got booked. Great experience!"

After four years in Yorkshire, where he picked up a little of the accent, came three seasons of promotion near-misses with free-spending Wigan. Among his managers in Lancashire was one of his role models as a player, Steve Bruce.

Wigan look now set to escape the Second Division, which might have frustrated De Zeeuw were the prognosis not so favourable for Portsmouth, whom he joined last summer.

Inevitably, given his physical style, there have been nasty injuries, not all of them his own. Once, when Barnsley met Tottenham, De Zeeuw's shin caught Jürgen Klinsmann's jaw as they fell. "By the time I got up he was choking on his tongue. He had to be turned on his side to make sure he didn't swallow it."

Was he tempted to say "Step aside, I'm a doctor"? "No. Spurs' physio was there so there was no need to interfere. Players occasionally ask advice but I don't think I should offer any opinions. We've got an excellent doctor and physios at Pompey." What about the contradiction between making tackles that can put people in hospital and being a healer? "There isn't one. I never set out to hurt anyone, just to win the ball. I get plenty of knocks, so it cuts both ways."

In one of his first games for Portsmouth, a friendly with Celtic, his colleague Eddie Howe headed him on the temple. "I remember coming round in the tunnel and asking the ambulance men: 'What are you doing?' Then at Watford on New Year's Day, I damaged my ankle ligaments after just two minutes in a challenge with Heidar Helguson. I was out until we drew away to our big rivals, Leicester, last Monday."

The lay-off allowed him to catch up with the post-graduate "distant learning" course he is taking under London University supervision. "I'm studying infectious diseases; prevention, screening and so on. I really enjoy it, although I have to do an exam this summer. I don't like the statistics. But I love finding out about the cells, the viruses and the immune system."

Talk about sentences you never thought you would hear from a defensive bruiser. However, with the Premiership beckoning for Pompey and De Zeeuw, the Hippocratic oath, not to mention the Socratic precedent, may have to wait.