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Image courtesy of Arsenal FC |
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Dennis Bergkamp
| Category: | Male Player |
| Year Inducted: | 2007 |
Profile by Robert Galvin, the author of Football's Greatest Heroes, the official book of the National Football Museum Hall of Fame:
On a bright March day in 2002, Dennis Bergkamp was standing, his back to goal, on the edge of the Newcastle United penalty area when Robert Pires played in a ball to feet. What happened next stunned his own team-mates, never mind the opposition, and prompted Arsene Wenger to comment later: ‘Dennis only scores best-sellers.'
Bobby Robson, the Newcastle manager, was probably the least surprised Geordie inside St James' Park that day. He'd known all about Bergkamp from his days working in Dutch football a decade or so earlier.
Asked back then his opinion of the Ajax prodigy, Robson said: ‘He takes the ball easily on either side,' Robson said. ‘He's got a lovely first touch, and he's a cool finisher. He can hit it or he can slot it, and he knows which option to chose. And he's surprisingly strong. A terrific player, simply terrific.'
And here, in a flurry of brilliance, Bergkamp bore out everything Robson had said.
Tightly marked by Nikos Dabizas, the experienced Greece defender, Bergkamp had allowed the ball run across him. He's still facing away from goal, some twenty yards out. Then, in a flash, Bergkamp flicks the ball with the instep of left foot, imparting both loft and side-spin; the ball goes one side of the defender, Bergkamp, turning anti-clockwise, goes the other, leaving the stunned Dabizas momentarily flat-footed. That's all the time Bergkamp needs. Using his strength to hold off the defender, the Dutchman despatches the ball, side-footed, with his next touch past the goalkeeper from eight yards out. Only now, when he sees the smiling faces of his team-mates, does Bergkamp fully realize the extraordinary feat he has just performed.
That's it, then. Match of the Day 's Goal of the Season award is settled – and it's not yet Christmas. By the time the formality of a vote is out of the way, Arsenal are on their way to the Double. Remarkably, it was a similar story back in 1997-98: Bergkamp scores the Goal of the Season (this ‘best-seller', as Wenger would say, came at Leicester City ), and Arsenal win the Premiership title and the FA Cup. Before an early Cup tie at Middlesbrough , Tony Adams, the Arsenal captain, had a quiet word. ‘Don't you think it's about time you won something with us,' Adams said.
Three years earlier Bergkamp had arrived at Highbury with something to prove. He may have been the first established international star to move to England with the best years ahead of him, but his reputation had undoubtedly suffered at Inter, where he was played out of position as an out-and-out goalscorer. By the end, the Italians were happy to offload him for a fee of £7.5 million, a loss of almost half on their initial investment (though still a record fee for the Gunners).
Once installed at Highbury, Bergkamp reverted to his preferred position , Bergkamp reverted to his preferred position as a ‘shadow' striker, as the Dutch would say. And the Premiership game suited him just fine: unlike their Italian counterparts, English defenders tended to push up for offside, leaving plenty of space into which he could thread his passes and make his runs. The final proof of his footballing resurrection came in 1997-98, when both the football writers and his fellow professionals voted him footballer of the year.
His contribution to the side was not always obvious, even to Arsene Wenger. At times, Wenger even thought about dropping him, only to change his mind after sitting down and watching the tapes. Then he realised that, on closer inspection, Bergkamp had in fact been the common denominator in all Arsenal's best moments. ‘As a provider of the final ball, Dennis is irreplaceable,' Wenger would say later. Meanwhile, Arsenal fans jokingly began wearing replica shirts with ‘God' and number 10 on the back.
Inevitably, with the advancing years, Bergkamp lost a yard or two of pace. Increasingly, he found himself tiring in the second half of matches. Invariably, when the electronic board went up with the number 10 lit up, the crowd gave him a standing ovation, by the end it hardly mattered how he'd played that particular day, they stood up anyway. Likewise, the club was quick to recognise his contribution, granting him a testimonial in July 2006. Fittingly, the opponents for the first match to be played at the Emirates Stadium were Ajax, his first club. In total, he'd played 423 games for the Gunners, scoring 120 goals.
Like so many of his compatriots, Bergkamp loved English football as a boy growing up in Holland. Famously, his father, who took him to matches in London as a boy, named him after Denis Law, the great Manchester United striker. ‘In a way, he's just like Law,' Bobby Robson once said, ‘You think you've got him under control, and over eighty-five minutes maybe you have, but then he'll give you the slip and knock it in, and there's nothing at all you can do about it.'