Born in Amsterdam, van Duivenbode made his senior debut on 3 May 1964 for hometown club Ajax against Sparta but was deemed not hard enough by manager Rinus Michels after they lost the 1969 European Cup Final to Milan. He subsequently left the club for arch rivals Feyenoord, with whom he did win international silverware. He was the third Ajax player in history to join Feyenoord after Eddy Pieters Graafland and Henk Groot and also scored the only goal in his first "Klassieker" in a Feyenoord-shirt, on 2 November 1969.