Dick van Dijk grew up in
Gouda and played football in his youth in the local amateur club. When he was sixteen, he met coach
Hans Croon of
SVV, with whom he played in the Second division. Van Dijk was the top scorer for the club in 1966 when SVV won promotion to the First Division. He was invited to the Dutch youth team and the Dutch military team. The scoring ability of the young star attracted the interest of
FC Twente, but the asking price of 200,000 guilders was too much. A less impressive season ensured that the transfer fee a year later had dropped to 70,000 guilders, with Van Dijk joining FC Twente in the summer of 1967. At Twente, Van Dijk formed a strong attacking partnership with Theo Pahlplatz, scoring 22 times and helping a youthful side to a creditable eighth-place finish in his first season. The following year Van Dijk finished as top scorer in the Premier League with 30 goals. In a legendary home match against Ajax on 3 November 1968, Twente won 5–1 and Van Dijk scored three goals. It is believed that this contest sparked the interest of Ajax in Van Dijk, who in June 1969 moved to Amsterdam for a transfer fee of 750,000 guilders. While Van Dijk had been a star player at Twente, he had to fight for a spot at Ajax, becoming as a result a more complete footballer who knew how to defend. In his first season, he scored 23 goals in 32 matches. Although not a regular starter during his second season, he nonetheless scored 18 goals in 29 matches. Van Dijk started in the final of the European Cup in June 1971 against
Panathinaikos, scoring with a header after five minutes in Ajax's 2–0 victory. After a third season at Ajax, where he was mainly a reserve player, Van Dijk departed in 1972 to
OGC Nice in France. There he scored frequently, helping the team to a second-place finish in 1972–73 season. On 19 September 1973, Nice achieved a remarkable 3–0 victory in the first leg of their UEFA Cup tie with
FC Barcelona, whose coach was Dutchman
Rinus Michels and whose star player (although he did not figure in the match) was
Johan Cruijff. (Nice would go on to win the tie 3–2 on aggregate.) In 1974, Van Dijk joined
Real Murcia in Spain, and a year later ended his football career. ==International career==