Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink (born as Jan Johannes Vennegoor of Hesselink, November 7, 1978 in Oldenzaal) is a Dutch football player who currently plays for Scottish Premier League club Celtic. He plays in the position of striker.

Club career

He scored 59 league goals for FC Twente over the course of five seasons. In the summer of 2001 he was signed up by PSV Eindhoven, scoring 22 goals in his first season.

However his second and third seasons at PSV proved less fruitful, since he scored only 8 and 12 goals respectively. At the end of the 2003-04 season, he was told he could leave the club. However he stayed on, and in 2004-05, Vennegoor of Hesselink was in form, scoring 19 goals in 28 matches. He also earned a re-call to the Dutch national team in March 2005 after an absence of four and a half years. He made his debut for the Dutch national team on 11 October 2000 against Portugal. He has played in the 2006 World Cup making a late appearance as a substitute in the second-round game against Portugal. Currently Vennegoor of Hesselink is a regular call-up for the national team and plays the role as reserve striker.

On August 24, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink left PSV and signed a 3 year deal with Scottish champions Celtic, with the option of a further year, for a fee of around £3.4m. He scored on his debut after coming on as a substitute against Hibernian. In his next game, against Aberdeen, he scored the winner from outside the box in a 1-0 win. He then scored his first European goal for Celtic in the Champions League against Manchester United. Injuries have subsequently curtailed his appearances but he has recently come onto form, scoring his first hat-trick for the Bhoys against St. Mirren and a last minute winner against Inverness Caledonian Thistle, before being sent off with a second booking, after leaving the field of play to celebrate with the Celtic fans.

The new season started slowly for Vennegoor of Hesselink, but he started to find some form after shaking off early injuries and at the end of the January transfer window his performances improved immensely, delivering a Man of the Match performance and scoring against Kilmarnock in a 5-1 thrashing in the Scottish Cup, and followed that up with a goal against Hearts and then a stunning diving header to give Celtic a 1-0 lead against FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 first leg at Celtic Park.

On April 16, 2008 Vennegoor of Hesselink scored his first Old Firm goal for Celtic against Rangers at Celtic Park in injury-time to give Celtic a 2-1 win.

On the 22nd of May 2008, Hesselink scored for Celtic against Dundee United on the final day of the season to assure Celtic of three in a row.

Name

His name - one of the longest in European football - derives from the 17th century, when two farming families in the Enschede area of the Netherlands intermarried. Both the Vennegoor and Hesselink names carried equal social weight, and so - rather than choose between them - they chose to use both. "Of" in Dutch translates to "or" in English, which would mean that a strict translation of his name would read ‘Jan Vennegoor or Hesselink’. This could be considered as having the same effect as the double-barrelling of English surnames.