EYEBROWS have been raised in League Two all season as to why Clyde Wijnhard has been wearing the number three shirt in Darlington's nine-month quest for a play-off place.

The more simplistic reason given throughout the campaign was that it was the only first 11 shirt available to him when he initially signed for the Quakers on a pay-as-you-play basis after being offered a football lifeline.

But there appears to be another more historical reason why Wijnhard, renowned for over a decade as a goalscoring centre-forward, has an affinity with a number normally associated with a full-back.

The year the great Ajax team were crowned European champions for the last time, Wijnhard was part of Louis van Gaal's outstanding set-up, albeit only on the periphery.

He had been part of the Amsterdam giants since the age of ten and gradually worked his way up to first team level nine years later. But, after scoring on his debut against Dordrecht in 1993, he was suddenly left in the shadows with such great emerging talent around him.

Dennis Bergkamp, Edgar Davids, Jari Litmanen, Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert and Mark Overmars were all part of an Ajax side labelled as 'a team reaching football Utopia' by the then Real Madrid coach Jorge Valdano in 1995.

There were only two men in that Champions League-winning team over the age of 25 and beaten finalists AC Milan, with just one player under 26, were unable to cope with the refreshing and unnerved approach of van Gaal's homegrown talent.

But, such was the exceptional gift given to some of these players at birth, Wijnhard found himself having to deal with a totally different season-long lesson from former schoolmaster van Gaal that he had become accustomed to.

Perhaps all the indications of a change of scenery in the player's career had been apparent when he was sent out on loan to FC Groningen in 1993/94 but it was the year of Champions League triumph in Vienna when it became clear he had to move on.

After returning from Groningen, Wijnhard was told by van Gaal that he no longer wanted him to play as a forward. Instead the talented young striker was afforded the role as right-back for the whole of the campaign.

If that was not hard enough to bear, it was a role he had to play for the Ajax reserves while the likes of the de Boer brothers helped van Gaal's side to European glory.

It is little wonder then that Wijnhard asked to leave that same summer when he had the option to stay and he signed from RKC Waalwijk.

From there his profession has taken him from Holland to England, England to Portugal and back again, to the less enchanting surroundings of a game at Gay Meadow.

There was a brief ten-month spell at Leeds United after leaving Holland and he became friends with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. Hasselbaink, now at Middlesbrough, trains just a couple of miles away from Wijnhard's home ground and he holds fond memories of working with his fellow Dutchman.

"I'm still in touch with him. Not as much as before. He still has property in Leeds. He's one year younger than me and we only had a year together but he is a great guy," said Hasselbaink. "Clyde's a really bubbly figure and is always laughing and joking. He likes living life to the full."

As well as sharing the same agent, Humphrey Niman, in their younger days, the two also originate from the Surinam town of Paramaribo, where so many Dutch footballers were born.

Newcastle's Kluivert, who scored that winning European goal in 1995 at 18 and who shares a Tyneside apartment with Wijnhard, was born in the South American country and highlights the sort of talent that has been developed from there.

But, after leaving Leeds and joining Huddersfield in 1999 and initially shining for Steve Bruce's Terriers alongside Marcus Stewart, Wijnhard had a serious car accident in his Merecedes jeep on the A1.

He had to have an operation to pin a compound fracture of his arm and was lucky to be alive.

"He was unfortunate to be in that accident because that brought his career downhill. He was doing really well at Huddersfield until then," said Hasselbaink. "In all respect for Darlington, the division he is in now is too easy for him. He wants to establish himself in England though and Darlington could be the place for him to enjoy it."

It is that sort of reputation that Darlington, who have had 15 goals from him this term, are looking to against Cheltenham at the Williamson Motors Stadium today.

The Quakers know it could be Wijnhard's experience in front of goal that could lead to them overtaking Northampton in the race for the final play-off place this afternoon.

After the 32-year-old's short-term contract turned into a two-year deal in November he had struggled to recapture the sort of form that warranted an extended deal until six goals in his last seven games earned him Powerade League Two player of the month.

"Clyde can win a game for us in an instant. There's no question about that," said the man who pulled off a major coup by signing the player, Darlington boss David Hodgson.

"But I think, and I have told the players this, that the likes of Hignett, Armstrong and Wijnhard should all have been getting into the PFA team of the year. That would have shown how consistent they have been for me.

"Clyde has come from a higher level and we all know that. We got him in after a deal failed to materialise at Sunderland for him and I've been honest with him ever since. That's why he enjoys it here."

It was the Dutch that invented the term Total Football in the seventies and it was Ajax who subscribed to that approach to the game in the nineties.

Now, in 2005 and in a league more renowned for kick and rush than free-flowing football, it is time for Wijnhard to show exactly what he learned at the renowned Ajax Academy by helping Darlington succeed in turning a season of transition into one of success.

Read more about the Quakers here.