HE won't admit it, but Glenn Roeder wasn't particularly happy when Louis van Gaal claimed Newcastle were serial under-achievers ahead of last week's first leg at St James' Park.

Still, while van Gaal is widely revered for his European successes while in charge of Ajax and Barcelona, Roeder will be pleased to learn that he is hardly the only person with a Newcastle connection to find fault with the Alkmaar manager.

Patrick Kluivert, a hit on the Quayside if not the St James' Park terraces during his season-long stay with the Magpies, played under van Gaal during the Dutchman's reign as his country's national coach.

And as Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, another player to have come under van Gaal's control explains, the pair once fell out over a case of mistaken identity in a Copenhagen hotel.

"We were in a hotel after a game against Holland in 2001 and there were rumours that Patrick had invited a group of models to a party," said Hasselbaink, who will line up against Newcastle for his current employers, Charlton, on Saturday.

"Louis van Gaal saw two girls going upstairs to the floor where the players were staying and lost his rag. He ordered the security to check all the rooms and it was absolute chaos.

"He threatened to take the entire squad out of the hotel if they didn't throw this one girl out of there. The only problem was that she had worked there for 15 years. She was a maid going to clean Patrick's room."

For Newcastle's sake, let's hope van Gaal's judgement is every bit as skewed this evening!

Hasselbaink is one of Alkmaar's most famous sons, although his time with the Dutch Eridivisie outfit was hardly the happiest.

Signed as a fresh-faced teenager, the former Middlesbrough striker was dumped into the backwaters of amateur football when a bout of the Anthony Stokes proved one mistake too many.

"I wasn't really ready when I started playing football," said Hasselbaink. "I was young, and I'd had a background on the street, so I suppose professional football came as a bit of a surprise to me.

"I often arrived late, which was part of the reason why I was kicked out. I thought, 'I am the man, I play professional football', but it turned out that I wasn't indispensable."

Stokes' misdemeanours have come to the attention of the Newcastle United press office, and a strict time-enforcement policy was in place when the media assembled to travel to last night's press conference.

Tardiness is clearly an Irish trait, as just as Stokes had been late for the bus to Barnsley last weekend, so his compatriot, John Anderson, was behind the clock yesterday. A fine will be issued to the former Newcastle defender in due course.

Not content with making do with the bus, I also sampled Alkmaar's taxi service later on yesterday evening, only to come face-to-face with a bona fide Dutch pop star.

And not just any old singer either. I was wondering why a 50-year-old woman was singing along at the top of her voice when "Heel de Wereld Rond" ("All Around The World" by all accounts) came on the radio, only to discover that it was because she was the one singing the song in the first place.

Wilma Roos might be a singer in the top 100 of the Dutch charts but she is also a taxi driver in downtown Alkmaar.

I'm on a 20 per cent commission if she takes my advice and records a cover version of "Baby, You Can Drive My Car" later this year.