Club Born in Rotterdam but raised in The Hague, Appel played for local clubs Archipel and Blauw Zwart in the Dutch amateur leagues in the 1930s. He was
forced to work in a factory in
Berlin, Germany in 1942. The factory where he worked was bombed a year later, and Appel narrowly survived. During the war, Appel played for
Hertha BSC and for an unofficial Dutch national team, made up of Dutch forced labourers. His refusal to give the
Hitler salute before matches made the German authorities furious. The
Royal Dutch Football Association suspended Appel after the liberation in 1945. He left for France in 1949, and became an important player for
Stade de Reims where he played alongside
Raymond Kopa and
Roger Marche. Domestically he won the
Coupe de France in 1950 and the
French national title in 1953. Thanks to the victory of the French championship, Stade de Reims were allowed to participate in the
fifth edition of the
Latin Cup, eventually resulting in the team's first ever major European trophy win, obtained after beating
AC Milan 3–0 in the final, with Appel scoring the second goal. Appel scored 96 goals in 154 matches for Stade Reims. Appel and
Theo Timmermans took the initiative for a charity match for the victims of the
North Sea flood of 1953, between
France and Dutch footballers playing abroad. The Dutch players won the match 2–1. The match was not an official international, because the Dutch players had been suspended from the Dutch national team. The Royal Dutch Football Association did not allow football players to be professionals. This match, however, paved the way for the acceptance of professional football in the Netherlands. Two years later, the ban on professionalism was lifted. Appel returned to the Netherlands in 1954, having been signed by
Fortuna '54 as one of the first professional football players in the Dutch league.
International Appel made his official debut for the
Netherlands in a July 1948 Olympic Games match against
Great Britain in which he immediately scored 2 goals. He earned a total of 12 caps, scoring 10 goals. His final international was an April 1957
friendly match against
West Germany. ==Managerial career==