id
STAR TRIBUTE
Let's start with the first time I knew I'd get to play with Dennis Bergkamp - and
it's a surreal story.
DENNIS BERGKAMP TESTIMONIAL MATCH V A|AX JULY 22, 2006
an Wright
After the end of the 1994/95 season
there was speculation that Dennis
Bergkamp was coming to Arsenal. To
be honest I thought it was just talk to
try and keep the fans happy - we
hadn't had a great season. During
the summer I kept hearing he was
coming but still didn't think it would
happen, we'd only just got a new
manager and it just seemed so
unlikely. Anyway, one afternoon I
pulled into Clacket Lane Services on
the M25 and saw a massive BMW at
one of the pumps, I could see it was
Whatever
Maradona
could do
with his left
foot, I swear
Dennis
could do
with his
right... PP
left-hand drive and could also see
that it was parked with the petrol cap
the wrong side for the pump and I
was just thinking 'who's done that...'
when I saw Dennis Bergkamp walk
out of the services and head towards
the car. You know what, I just
screamed, I knew there and then that
it was true, I would be playing
alongside Dennis Bergkamp for
Arsenal the next season.
Unbelievable! After I'd finished
jumping around the petrol station we
said hello properly and I chatted for a
while with Dennis
and Henrita and they
said how happy they
were to have come to
Arsenal and for
Dennis to sign for
Arsenal. 11 years later
and my excitement,
and all the fans'
excitement when he
signed proved totally
justified.
Dennis Bergkamp is
a world class player
in every single
aspect of his game.
He is right up there
with the very, very best, people like
Maradona and Johan Cruyff.
Whatever Maradona could do with
his left foot, I swear Dennis could
do with his right and you don't
know what a privilege it was to play
on the same park as Dennis.
Sometimes his skills just defied all
logic when you watched him in a
game or in training. You knew he
was going to be a success at
Arsenal and it made me laugh when
the Press got on his back when he
didn't score in his first few games.
But when he scored those two goats
against Southampton they were
typically Dennis - beautiful goals
like they all seemed to be - like his
last one for Arsenal against West
Brom.
You could tell he was a big game
player too, we knew that and Bruce
Rioch knew that and it was typical
that when we needed to beat
Bolton on the last day of his first
season Dennis stepped up to score
the winner with five minutes left to
get us into Europe.
In his first couple of months Dennis
needed to toughen up a bit for the
English game, we spoke about it,
"THERE'S ONLY ONE DENNIS BERGKAMP, ONE DENNIS BERGKAMP,
