Cees began his career at FC Wageningen before he entered service at N.E.C.. Here, he became a stable and highly acclaimed defender who would finally play 230 league games for the Nijmegen club. He managed to score 57 goals in these matches. Because of his height he was also often used as a striker at N.E.C. His last years there were marked by injuries. Following yet another re-entry after a serious injury, he managed to score the winning goal against Feyenoord in his comeback match. As a player, he gained the nickname The Living Legend from the N.E.C. supporters.
Career as trainer
After his playing career he remained under contract with N.E.C. and he became the coach of the second eleven. After Johan Neeskens was fired as head coach at N.E.C. in December 2004, Lok succeeded him, initially as interim coach. However, he had to complete the season and he did a good job of this. On 10 May 2005, he then attained his Professional Football Coach Diploma, following an internship at both Arsenal FC and N.E.C. After having been head coach of N.E.C. for one year and despite the good performance of the club, he unexpectedly resigned from his post and left. It was only a year later that he was prepared to discuss the reasons for his departure, but this remained vague. There were certain people within the club who he could not get on with. In January 2006 it was announced that Lok was going to be the new coach of NAC Breda, which had sacked their trainer Ton Lokhof a few days before. Soon after his arrival he had a clash with Pierre van Hooijdonk, who left to join Feyenoord in the winter break. When appointing Lok, NAC were already struggling at the bottom of the Premier League, but even under Lok were not able to break out of this position. The club ended up in the play-offs. Following a 0-0 draw in the first match of the play-offs against TOP Oss, Lok was told to pack his bags less than four months after his appointment. The main reason indicated by the NAC Board, was that the relationship between Lok and a number of players had been disrupted. Since October 2006 Lok was appointed as head coach at IJsselmeervogels in the Saturday first division. In his first season as coach, the club became champion in the Saturday first division B and general champion of Saturday amateurs. After turning down a job as head trainer of Wisła Kraków with effect from the 2007/08 season he set to work as coach of the promising FC Twente team. On March 5, 2008, he signed a contract binding him to Twente for two years. On 5 May 2008, Lok Jong achieved the national championship with Jong FC Twente. Two rounds before the end of the competition, his team could not be overtaken by the pursuing Jong Ajax, whereby he helped deliver Twente’s promise of the national championship for the first time. As a result, in the 2008/09 season, his team were able to play in the KNVB cup. In the summer of 2009, Lok stopped as coach of Jong FC Twente and succeeded Mohammed Allach as technical manager at Twente. In this role, he falls directly under the trainer / coach of FC Twente. He also carries out support activities for the Supervisory Board. In this role, he and the head coach together are responsible for FC Twente’s technical policy. In this capacity he’s worked together with Steve McClaren, Michel Preud'homme and Co Adriaanse. FC Twente became the Dutch national champions for the first time in 2010, when Lok was active as Technical Manager. March 2015 Lok left FC Twente and started One Goal Sportmanagament with Jan Streuer. In July 2019 Ronald Koeman, as the Dutch National teamHead coach, added Cees Lok full time to his staff as Chief analist/scout to analyse players and teams for the upcoming EK2020.
