Stillness and Speed: My Story

by Bergkamp, Dennis

  So everything would be fine now, wouldn’t it? Not quite. Holland’s team spirit was in tatters and their last group game would be at Wembley against an exuberant England who had just beaten Scotland. Not only would the hosts be pumped up with patriotic pride, they also had the indignities of 1988 and 1993 to avenge. Moreover, they had a coach, Terry Venables, who had a clear idea of how to dismantle the Dutch tactically. What followed was one of the great humiliations of Dutch football – and one of England’s best nights in decades. The final score was 4-1. As England attacked with focused and (for once) tactically sophisticated aggression, the Dutch simply collapsed. There were two genuinely great goals as well. Alan Shearer’s second goal (England’s third) rounded off a move involving a Paul Gascoigne dribble and a brilliant lay-off by Teddy Sheringham. Holland’s consolation goal followed an even more remarkable assist by Bergkamp, who controlled a drilled ball from Seedorf before hoisting a soft parabola-arced pass for Kluivert to score through Seaman’s legs. Surprisingly, the goal was enough to send Holland through to the quarter-final against France. At Anfield Dennis had to come off with a second half injury and could only watch as Holland lost on penalties. At least, at the end of the Wembley drubbing, he had been able to exit with dignity, conjuring one of his great assists, then swapping shirts with Tony Adams.

  Adams looks back: ‘I played over three generations so, with Holland, Van Basten was my contemporary. I’d wanted to get revenge on him and he went and bloody retired! So when we beat Dennis’s team in 1996 it felt like: “I’m getting revenge against the wrong people.” I know the Dutch were in chaos, but take nothing away from us. I thought we played some great football and Teddy Sheringham was a fantastic number ten. You know, I’m an Englishman and sometimes we don’t put ourselves forward enough. I’m patriotic. I love Dennis and I think he’s a super player, but also I played with Teddy Sheringham who had a hell of a lot of talent in the same type of role.’

  Hiddink, however, believes that disaster was caused not by English prowess but by Dutch in-fighting. He had pleaded with his players to come to their senses: ‘Think about how privileged you are to be acting on this stage. Put everything aside for this.’ But against England many of the players were still clearly thinking about problems with each other. ‘I felt like I was on a runaway train that I couldn’t stop as we raced past every station.’ Ultimately, though, there was a silver lining because ‘all that shit’ had come out during the tournament and he would now be free to clear the decks and make a fresh start.

  Dennis saw it differently: ‘I was really fed up. When the trouble really broke out, I knew right away that we had no more hope of winning. I thought: this is hopeless, it’s impossible. It was a terrible tournament. Everyone seemed relieved after that group discussion, but the mistrust ran too deep. The discussion came too late. If that whole issue had come out into the open before the tournament, we might have been able to genuinely solve it and find our rhythm. But that was no longer possible.’

  The one bright moment was his assist for Kluivert’s goal. ‘The way I did that was becoming typical of my game at Arsenal. That action meant a lot to me. After Inter I had kind of lost my way and at Arsenal I rediscovered my love of football, but it wasn’t immediately obvious what my role should be. I scored, but I assisted too. Slowly but surely I was assisting more than I was scoring. Patrick’s goal confirmed that I was developing that way in the national team, too.’ The negatives, however, far outweighed that single plus. ‘It was my third tournament and I thought: “What if this is it, and my final tournament is ruined by this kind of unprofessional, selfish behaviour?” It was just awful.’

  6

  TURBULENCE

  ‘ANNOYINGLY OFTEN,’ SAYS DENNIS, ‘I was told I should do something about it. People would say: “You can take a course to cure it, you know?” That really pissed me off.’

  Dennis’s aversion to flying began to develop in the summer of 1994. After his stressful first season at Inter, his World Cup campaign had been arduous and ended in disappointment in the heat of Dallas. In the aftermath of Holland’s 3-2 quarter-final defeat, he says: ‘I was exhausted and stayed exhausted. It wasn’t unusual for me to be dead-tired after a match, but usually I recovered pretty quickly. Not this time. I was really wasted. I went to the hotel with Henrita, but things only got worse there. I started trembling, I felt unwell and I was extremely nervous about the flight home. Something was really wrong with me for a while, and my head was out of kilter too. I was panicking. I had been through a difficult first year in Italy. It had taken a lot out of me, both physically and mentally. Then straight afterwards the World Cup and an intense quarter-final in the heat.’

  His legs felt like lead. In fact, everything about him felt heavy, including his arms and his head. Somehow he dragged himself onto the plane for Amsterdam. ‘I was still in a panic but it got better once the plane was cruising above the clouds. I was fine for the rest of the flight.’ But while the panic abated, his body had not recovered. ‘When we got home I slept for two whole days, that’s how tired I was. Then we rushed to go on holiday. We quickly booked a house in the south of France, but when we got there I was still extremely tired and morose. Usually, holidays are a time to wind down and recharge your batteries. But not this time. I wasn’t able to enjoy anything. Not the beach, not the sea. And I couldn’t settle down in that house, either.’

  Dennis was worried about having to play football again soon and called Inter to ask if he could join pre-season training a little later. Ottavio Bianchi wouldn’t hear of it. No exceptions would be made for Dennis. ‘I said: “Look, Coach, I’m sorry, I really need more time.” But Bianchi demanded that I turn up at the club for pre-season. He said he would take into account that I was still recovering from the World Cup.

  ‘It was absurd. From the day I went on holiday to the first training session at Inter was just ten days! At Arsenal, Wenger always said four weeks’ rest is the absolute minimum. Those four weeks were sacred for him.’

  When Dennis reported back for duty at Inter after his brief – and useless – holiday, he was given a medical check-up and then driven up into the Dolomite mountains near Madonna di Campiglio. Wim Jonk, who was also exhausted after the World Cup and had tried to extend his leave, came too.

  ‘Wim and I were supposed to be gradually eased back to fitness so we could rejoin the group. But after three days we were already expected to train with the others at full throttle. It was really tough up there in the mountains. We were pushed to the limit. We weren’t allowed to gradually recover our strength and it was awful. Right there I got this horrible premonition that the coming season was doomed to failure.’

  As soon as he returned from the mountains, Dennis was obliged to fly again. Inter almost always travelled to away games by air and, for domestic flights, used small propeller planes. Dennis recalls: ‘They were those nasty little planes that stay in the clouds and shake all the time. When you looked out all you could see was white or grey. And inside there was hardly any space. It was so cramped it made me claustrophobic. You had absolutely no room to move and you just sat there shaking the entire trip. 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.” 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. The last straw was when we had an away game against Fiorentina. I saw that boneshaker with its propellers standing on the runway and I broke out in a cold sweat. And sure enough, it was another disastrous flight. When we finally landed I called Henrita: “Where are you? Can you come and pick me up? I don’t want to do this any more.” She drove down to Florence and brought me back.’

  Dennis doesn’t recall the details – suppressing them, perhaps – but he must have flown a few more times with Inter after that Florence experience. Maybe he went by car or train to Naples for his la
st Italian league game? Dennis: ‘That’s highly unlikely. I probably gritted my teeth one last time. I have a vague memory of that, yes. But I know one thing for certain: I never flew again after that day.’ He briefly considered flying with the Dutch national team in June 1995 for the European Championship qualifier against Belarus in Minsk. ‘I went to the Dutch headquarters at Noordwijk to prepare, but I didn’t sleep at all that night. I just lay there sweating until I finally said to myself: “I can’t cope with this, so I’m not going to do it.” That’s when I took the decision.’ At a meeting with team doctor Frits Kessel and manager Guus Hiddink, Dennis explained his feelings and said: ‘I’m not flying any more.’

  Uttering that one little sentence brought tremendous relief. ‘It’s weird, but it was as if I had regained my freedom. Once again I was able to play football without any inhibitions, and I could concentrate on a wonderful new career at Arsenal.’ His announcement that he would stay on the ground in future was generally met with acceptance and understanding. But not from everyone. To those who suggested he take a course to cure his fear of flying, Dennis responds: ‘I know what flying is! I’ve flown countless times in large planes, small ones, tiny ones. At Ajax, I once flew in a minuscule little plane over Mount Etna near Naples when we got into a terrible air pocket . . . In terms of flying, I’ve seen and done it all and I’m simply not flying again. Ever.’

  His agent Rob Jansen, responded just the way Dennis had hoped. ‘He accepted it right away. He said: “If that’s how it is, Dennis, then so be it.” He didn’t say: “Don’t you realise what you’re doing? That this is disastrous for your career? That it’s going to cost you dearly?” No, he responded like a member of the family rather than like someone who only wanted to use me to earn money. That confirmed for me that I was in good hands with him. And it did cost me. In talks with Arsenal, if I said a million, they automatically deducted a hundred grand “because you don’t fly”. And I accepted that.’

  It wasn’t an issue at home, either. Henrita: ‘I never pushed him. I never thought: “I’ve got to get him over this.” Mind you, I did always think he would overcome his fear. Not by taking a course or something, but just spontaneously. After all, it started that way, too. It didn’t go away, but it did turn out to be something we could live with without too much trouble. You know, when he said he wasn’t going to fly any more, he calmed down. That calmness is worth a lot more than winning a few hours of travel time by flying. Our eldest, Estelle, loves flying. It doesn’t bother Dennis. He’s very realistic about it: “You’re able to do something I can no longer do. So be it.” It doesn’t limit him, it’s not a handicap. Dennis lets us do our thing. He takes us to the airport and picks us up again. No problem. For us it isn’t an issue. If it is for the outside world, well, that’s their problem.’

  7

  PAGES 301 AND 302

  IN THE SUMMER OF 1995 Dennis made another important decision. ‘I’d planned to be in Italy for at least four years, maybe six. But at the end of the second year I decided: “This is not the place to be.”’ Dennis’s agent went to [Inter president Massimo] Moratti and told him that Dennis wished to keep developing as a player, so the club should either recruit a new coach and different players or allow Dennis to leave. Moratti said that was impossible and he would stick with Bianchi as coach. Dennis responded: ‘OK, that’s it. We’re still friends, no problem. But let’s shake hands and I’ll go.’

  ‘Looking back, I think I was really quite broken. The World Cup in America had been exhausting the year before and I think my problem with flying was because of that period. It was stopping me from enjoying football, so I had to make a decision either to go into therapy for months or years, or just play football and go a different way. And by the summer of ninety-five I had a lot of doubts in my mind. What kind of footballer am I? Do I still want a career? Do I want to stop at twenty-eight? Because after Inter I’m just fed up with this, I really don’t enjoy this any more. And then in June I went to England and I felt straightaway the quietness. I thought: this is good. It’s not all about football. You train, you play, and after the final whistle you talk a little bit about the game but then you can just be yourself: private. And that’s what I needed.’

  Was there anywhere else you could have gone? Arsenal wasn’t as big then as it is now.

  ‘There were several options. Germany was in the picture as well, but I just couldn’t see myself there. The thought of playing for Bayern, it just . . . didn’t fit. And after Italy, Spain didn’t fit either. My mind was set on England. Man United weren’t interested and I wasn’t going to go to somewhere like Newcastle or Liverpool because of the travelling from Holland. Spurs was mentioned, and that had been Hoddle’s team, but even then I considered Arsenal to be a bit above Spurs. I’m not sure why. So I went back to Holland and Rob [Jansen, my agent] went to London. He already knew people at Arsenal because of Glenn Helder and Jan Wouters, who nearly went to Arsenal as well. The funny thing is, I really didn’t know anything about Arsenal’s reputation at the time for playing ‘boring’ football [under George Graham]. I’d seen a big article about the club in Voetbal International, the Dutch magazine, and it sounded good. They seemed to have a settled, stable team, with a lot of players of a certain age. I thought it would be easier for me to come into a team like that. I just had a good feeling about them. They had players who had authority: Tony Adams and the two full-backs [Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn] always played, they also had John Jensen at that time, Ian Wright, Paul Merson. This was not a collection of strangers. Eight or nine of these guys always played. I thought: “That suits me.”

  ‘They had done well in Europe, too: they’d won the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1994 then been in the final again the following year. For clubs in Holland, doing well in Europe meant getting past the quarter-finals. So I thought: “Yeah, it’s a big club, it’s in London, and it’s the way I want to play football. And Highbury is known for being a nice ground as well. Let’s see what happens.” I never expected to be there eleven years! Not at all! To tell you the truth, when I was at Inter I was thinking of playing until I was about twenty-eight and then going back to Holland. Just take a few years in England . . . But it all changed once I was in London.

  ‘The main thing for me was to move forward and get away from Italy. And it was my own adventure again, like when I chose Inter instead of Milan or Barcelona. I thought: “I’m the sort of player you don’t see at Arsenal, so maybe I can show people this is my way of playing.” Glenn Hoddle had stood out in this league and my way was similar to his way. I knew you could have space in England. So after a week, I made the decision and at the end of June I went with my wife to England for the first time, in the Channel Tunnel.

  ‘When I arrived the contract talks were still going on, and the medical had to be done. We stayed in the Four Seasons Hotel and Gary Lewin [the Arsenal chief physio] picked us up and took us to the stadium. He was unbelievable the way he helped me in my first season. He sorted out everything, he was always friendly, jolly and funny, and he knew everything about the club. And then I saw Highbury for the first time . . . wow! This was football! I loved all the houses around it, then you turn the corner and there’s the stadium! That’s not Dutch, nor Italian; you don’t see it in Europe. It’s just typically English. And you see the Marble Halls of course.

  ‘So I remember coming up the stairs and then I met my agent. My brother Wim was there as well. And I saw in the room two people from Inter who were finalising the deal. It struck me: “I’m a thing you buy and sell. I’m a commodity.” It was a strange feeling. Then I go up the stairs and I hear there’s probably going to be a press conference. They are just talking about money and this and that. And then that was all done, and they opened the doors to the pitch. Nature! The grass! It was perfect. As soon as I saw the pitch, I thought: “This is fantastic!” Then it’s the press conference with Bruce Rioch and David Dein and they’re showing a little videotape with some of my moments, with goals and assists, and the music
in the background is “This is The One” by The Stone Roses.’

  ‘Immerse me in your splendour / All the plans that I have made . . .’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know the words. But it was a good song, and my moments on the video were good, too. It was kind of nice. Then we went on to the pitch for the famous photoshoot of course, with the shirt, with Bruce, and I remember I had to stand on a little wooden plank because the head groundsman Steve Braddock wouldn’t let me stand on the grass! I thought: “I like this better than Inter.” At Inter, they put you on a pedestal and I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t have that status and it didn’t fit my character. Straightaway in England it felt more normal. And it wasn’t like Holland, where no one is allowed to be higher than anyone else because “we’re all the same”. England is in between, I think. It’s a nice balance. Instantly, I felt: “I’m appreciated here, they’re really happy that I came.” But at that time it was a bit strange because I really didn’t know what kind of player I was. How would I fit into the world’s top hundred players?’

  You didn’t think you might be near the top?

  ‘Not at all. Not at all! OK, I thought, I’m a good player, I’d done well at Ajax. But Ajax is Ajax. Ajax is Holland, and in my mind Holland is not rated in the world like England, Spain, Italy or Germany. I thought: “The normal person in the street probably doesn’t even know me.”