Summary
There are some great stories about Gerrit Keizer's early years, which try to make us believe Gerrit Keizer played for years at both Ajax and Arsenal, flying between the Netherlands and England each weekend to play for both teams, while the Dutch Soccer Association benefitted Ajax by allowing this against regulations. The reality is not that spectaculair. When the season 1928-29 is coming to an end, Ajax lets Gerrit Keizer play a few matches in Ajax 1 as a replacement for the injured Jan de Boer. Gerrit Keizer is at that time already a member of Ajax for several years and goalkeeper of Ajax III. One of the opponents, VUC, who have heard Keizer is also playing soccer in England, asked the Dutch soccer association to investigate whether Keizer is elligible to play. This had nothing to do with professional soccer, but had to do with the regulations that required a team to ask for dispensation if they wanted to use a player that had played matches in a foreign amateur competition. Ajax made clear that it was not the case that Gerrit Keizer had played any official matches in England. It is unclear whether the Dutch Soccer Association did any investigation on its own, but it seems the issue was closed. It seems Gerrit Keizer spent more of his time in England in the subsequent season (1929-30), and started to play official amateur matches. He did make such a good impression that he was asked by Arsenal to sign up with them as a professional soccer player in June 1930. It is unclear how long he has been under contract exactly, but this was very likely a very short period, at most a couple of months, because government bodies took action to prevent foreigners to get professional soccer contracts. He continued as amateur and was goalkeeper in several matches during the 1930-31 season. This is the period that, according to stories, Keizer would fly back and forth weekly between Netherlands and England playing for both Ajax and Arsenal, but we haven't found any indication this actually happened, and if it happened, it was not for Ajax 1. In theory it could have been that he was playing for a lower Ajax team, but it is unlikely it were official matches organized by the Dutch soccer association, because since Gerrit Keizer was a paid soccer player at Arsenal, it took according to regulations 3 years, until the start of season 1933-34, before Gerrit Keizer was allowed to play official matches for Ajax 1 again, and it seems unlikely to us that regulations would have been different for other matches organized by the Dutch Soccer Association. During the preparation for season 1933-34 Keizer was competing with Joop Vis to determine who could follow Jan de Boer, which Keizer quite easily won. From that moment onwards he was the first choice goalkeeper until the start of 1948, totalling 302 official matches for Ajax 1.
