Mr. Ablaze,
Under a bush,
Galway,
Ireland

All About Dennis

Dennis Bergkamp was born on May 10th 1969 in the city of Amsterdam to working class parents. Dennis showed an interest in footballs from his earliest days and once he was walking and toddling around around as a youngster, he would never be without a football. His parents Wim and Tonnie had three other sons and it was a sporting house as a result. His Dad played football at an amateur level in Amsterdam, and this is how Dennis started off as well.

Once Dennis started playing in eleven aside teams, his pedigree and inherent abilities began to shine through and when ever he laced his boots and took to the pitch, he would be the best player on show, meaning it did not take long for scouts to take notice and given the location, it was no surprise the Ajax were the team to first spot him aged 11 and he joined their youth system in 1980 and would grow up through his boyhood, teenage and early twenties years at Ajax for the next thirteen years. Dennis could easily have been a one team player, as he has that in his personality - loyalty and commitment, but it was not to be and Dennis finally left Ajax in 1993 to join Italian giants Inter Milan for a then mouth watering sum of £7.1 million.

His spell in Milan was short lived and as a result of changes of manager and ownership, as well as injury and fatigue following the 1994 world cup, Bergkamp did not enjoy good form in Serie A, which was a great blessing in disguise for Arsenal football club, who could clearly see the talent the Dennis possessed and in broke the Arsenal record transfer fee by signing the dutchman in 1995. Many people will credit Arsene Wenger with the shrewd purchase, but it was Englishman Rioch who brought him to London and the rest as they say is history.

He enjoyed an illustrious career with the Gunners for the next eleven years, which included his peak performance in my opinion between 1997 and 2003. You might look at his scoring record of 87 goals in 315 games and think that he was only weighing in for goal every four games, however to do so would be missing out on the other magical attributes of his game. There is no doubt that Dennis scored some wonder goals in his career with Arsenal, and indeed I will show you some of them soon, but it was the off the ball runs, link play, footballing intelligence and assists that set him apart. We have been graced with some unbelievably talented strikers down through the years from Ian Wright to Nwankwo Kanu and Nicolas Anelka to Thierry Henry, but for me Dennis stands head and shoulders above them all. Yes, I am including him in higher esteem than Thierry Henry. Is that because of Thierry Handball vs Ireland, subconsciously I'm sure it is a factor, but luckily I am not journalist and don't have an editor telling me that I can't write that, so I'll stick to my guns and say that Dennis was a more talented footballer than Thierry.

During his time with Arsenal, Dennis was instrumental in three premier league titles in 1998, 2002 and 2004 and helped us win the FA cup five times in 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2005 and was an ever present in the Arsenal invincible team of 2003 who unbelievably went the full league season of 38 games without losing a single game, a feat that has not been completed since and is not likely to be. In fact it has only happened one other time in English football, back when I was a young lad in 1889, who can tell me who that team was? You might be surprised by the answer.

Dennis like everybody was not perfect though and he had an idiosyncrasy which I will explore below and don't worry I'm not forgetting about the super goals, they will follow soon after.

The Non Flying Dutchman

The one thing I'll say about Dennis was that he was a man of principle. He was the ultimate professional and was an ideal role model for younger players to follow. You would never see Dennis on the front page of the tabloid newspapers, only on the back page after scoring one of his many wonder goals. As I say, he was a man of principle, and one principle he had was an innate fear of flying. Did he always have this fear or did something bring it on? Let me tell you about it now.

The fear was not something that manifested itself after Dennis arrived in the UK, but rather began while a player at Inter Milan, before Bruce Rioch brought the dutchman to Highbury. As Dennis says himself:

"They were those nasty little planes that stay in the clouds and shake all the time... It was so cramped it made me claustrophobic"

I know where he is coming from here, as I have been on some of these smaller planes and when they go through the clouds it can certainly be a bit worrying. However, if I ever had a chance to kit out for Arsenal anywhere on Earth, I'd gladly board a 1979 Ford Cortina with wings made of Weetabix. Dennis is not me though, and he was happy to forego financial gain in order to stick to his principles and said this about it at the time:

“When I was in talks with Arsenal, if I said ‘a million’ they automatically deducted a hundred grand ‘because you don’t fly’. And I accepted that.”

The fear was genuine and actually affected his performances during matches, as he states below, as he'd be scanning the sky wondering how cloudy it might be for the flight home.

"You had absolutely no room to move and you just sat there shaking the entire trip.

"It got so bad I would look up at the sky during away games to see what the weather was like. Were there any clouds coming? Sometimes I was preoccupied by the flight home while I was playing football. It was hell."

In the end Dennis took control back into his own hands and decided he simply was not flying for either Arsenal or Holland, which meant he either missed European and International games, or else where possible he would travel by bus or train or some alternative to flying. I must admit, we really missed him on big European nights when he didn't travel, but I admire him for sticking to his guns and going with his gut instinct. I would even go as far as to say it improved his career by removing this unnecessary anxiety from his mind.

"It made me feel so awful and I began to develop such an aversion to it that it suddenly dawned on me: ‘I don’t want to do this any more’"

Right, let us move on from planes, trains and automobiles now. I promised above that I would share some videos of Dennis's best goals, so here you go.

Special Goals

The first thing to say here is that there were lots and lots of special goals to choose from, as the Dutch Maestro was a goal machine and more times than not there was something special about his goals. The second thing to say is that the videos shared below are not my property and simply shares of Youtube videos to demonstrate some of Dennis's goals, I am happy to take these down if they are in breach of copyright of any sort.

This one is worth watching just for the commentator's reaction which is absolutely class. The pass, the touch and the finish here in the pressure situation of the 90th minute of a World Cup Quarter final just has to be seen. The man was a genius, no doubt about it.

The goal is from 2:24 in this video, but sure you may as well watch the whole thing and get a few extra bonus Bergkamp goals for your troubles. This goal against Everton once again demonstrates his deft of touch, once again getting on the end of a hopeful punt forward from Robert Pires, Mr. Bergkamp takes a touch with the outside of his right foot (wand) and makes space with the second touch on his left and sweeps in beyond the keeper, all done inside around 1 second with the ball literally sticking to his feet. Take a bow Dennis.