Bergkamp Article

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GranadaJoe
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Bergkamp Article

Post by GranadaJoe »

Apparently, tomorrow is the anniversary of Dennis's hat-trick v Leics.

On the Telegraph website there's a long article about it (Dennis came first, second and third in the Goal of the Month comp that month), including interviews with those involved, videos etc.

Well worth it if you've got 10 mins and would like to remember a time when you enjoyed following the club.

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Re: Bergkamp Article

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Here's the link because Atheists are too lazy to post them apparently;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/201 ... -20-years/

:D :wink:

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Re: Bergkamp Article

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I remember that ginger day walker Adrian Durham prick saying he thought The Bergkamp didn't deserve to have all 3 slots in GOTM. :roll:

Of course the same silly cúnt reckoned Aguero was a better player than Bergk - hahaha I can't even finish that sentence! :coffeespit:

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Re: Bergkamp Article

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DB10GOONER wrote:
Fri Aug 25, 2017 1:22 pm
Here's the link because Atheists are too lazy to post them apparently;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/201 ... -20-years/

:D :wink:

Sorry, I was a bit busy eating my own offspring.

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Re: Bergkamp Article

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DB10GOONER wrote:
Fri Aug 25, 2017 1:22 pm
Here's the link because Atheists are too lazy to post them apparently;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/201 ... -20-years/

:D :wink:




Anyyyywaaaayss....

phpBB [video]



:barscarf: . :barscarf: . :barscarf:
Last edited by OneBardGooner on Sat Aug 26, 2017 3:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Bergkamp Article

Post by OneBardGooner »

GranadaJoe wrote:
Fri Aug 25, 2017 4:48 pm
DB10GOONER wrote:
Fri Aug 25, 2017 1:22 pm
Here's the link because Atheists are too lazy to post them apparently;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/201 ... -20-years/

:D :wink:

Sorry, I was a bit busy eating my own baby batter.
:shock:

Jeeezuss steady on mate! :D :wink:

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Re: Bergkamp Article

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Twenty years ago on Sunday, Dennis Bergkamp scored the greatest hat-trick in Premier League history in Arsenal's 3-3 draw away at Leicester City.

They were three goals that perfectly encapsulated the Dutchman's genius. The first was a long-range curler into the top corner, the second a one-on-one after bursting into the area from a deep position, and the third a staggering piece of control and skill followed by an ice-cool finish for what was that year's goal of the season.

Leicester's manager Martin O'Neill and the Match of the Day pundit Alan Hansen agreed that it was the best hat-trick they'd ever seen, while Bergkamp and Arsene Wenger rate the final goal as the finest of the Dutchman's Arsenal career - better even than the one at Newcastle.
The top three of Match of the Day's goal of the month for August 1997 were all scored by Bergkamp, the only time one player has claimed all three top spots in the competitions's 47-year history.

To mark the occasion - curiously Bergkamp's only Arsenal hat-trick - we've spoken to those who were involved in the thrilling draw at Filbert Street. Three players each from the two sides that night - Arsenal's Nigel Winterburn, Lee Dixon and Ray Parlour, and Leicester's Kasey Keller, Steve Claridge and Garry Parker - share their memories, along with the club's then goalkeeping coach Bob Wilson, plus commentator Martin Tyler and David Winner, the co-author of Bergkamp's biography Stillness and Speed.

The context

Bergkamp joined Arsenal to much fanfare in 1995 and after two good but not great years, something clicked at the start of the 1997-98 season. In the third match of the campaign, Bergkamp was enraged by the close attentions of Southampton defender Francis Benali and channeled his anger into scoring two sumptuous goals in a 3-1 win.

Four days later, second-placed Arsenal travelled to fourth-placed Leicester who had won the League Cup four months earlier and had picked up seven points from their first three matches - the same as Arsenal. Filbert Street was a horrible destination for visiting teams, with raucous home support, O'Neill's feverish enthusiasm and the team's direct approach making for an intimidating cocktail of crackling energy and hostility.
Ray Parlour, Arsenal's right winger on the night: "When we signed Dennis we didn’t necessarily think he’d transform things, because you never know how a player is going to settle into a club. We hoped he could improve the team and after a bit of a settling in period, he was unbelievable. Things really started to fit into place for him at the start of that 1997-98 season."

Dennis Bergkamp said on Arsenal.com in 2008: "When I look back on the Leicester match, it was a typical English game with the crowd close to the pitch. At that time I started to feel really comfortable in the team. So I had the confidence to do well and yeah, I just took my chances, which I always did in my career."

Nigel Winterburn, Arsenal's left-back: "Going up to Filbert Street you always knew it was going to be a battle and the atmosphere in the stadium was going to be electric. They were always very pumped up when you played at Leicester."

Line-ups
Leicester (3-5-2): Keller; Elliott, Prior, Walsh; Kaamark, Izzet (Cottee 73'), Lennon, Savage (Parker 73'), Guppy; Claridge (Fenton 63'), Heskey
Arsenal (4-4-2): Seaman; Dixon, Bould, Grimandi, Winterburn; Parlour (Platt 82'), Vieira, Petit, Overmars (Hughes 78'); Bergkamp, Wright (Anelka 78')


Kasey Keller, Leicester's goalkeeper:"It’s more memorable than most for me because my kids were born the day before. I was down in London with my wife on the Tuesday, the kids were born in the afternoon and I came back to Leicester that night. Then after the game I went back to the hospital.

Lee Dixon, Arsenal's right-back: "Filbert Street was always a tough place to go, and I was just coming back from flu and had missed the game before. Arsene put me back in the team because I said I was fine but I had an absolute nightmare, giving the ball away, being out of position."
Steve Claridge, Leicester striker: "We knew they had lots of good players, but you have to concentrate on what you’re good at, and at that stage we were a good side. We didn’t go into game fearing anyone or worrying about anyone.
"We played every game like it was the last game we were ever going to play. We had real character in that team. It wasn’t like Bergkamp finished up scoring three goals against a poor side who had nothing to play for. We never approached a game like that at any stage."
Garry Parker, Leicester central midfielder:"We were a team that never gave up under Martin. Teams hated coming to play us Filbert Street."
The stage was set for one of the great Premier League matches.

Leicester vs Arsenal | August 27 1997
Leicester 3 (Heskey 84, Elliot 90, Walsh 90) Arsenal 3 (Bergkamp 9, 61, 90)
Filbert Street (Attendance: 21,089)

Bergkamp makes it 1-0 after nine minutes

Marc Overmars rolls a corner to Bergkamp, who takes a touch and then curls a shot from the edge of the area so perfectly judged that it misses the bar and post by millimetres and bounces back out of the net. The Leicester goalkeeper Kasey Keller is so befuddled that he doesn't even dive.
Keller: "I don’t know how I’m going to dive when a ball is four feet over my head! It was one of those things, there are a lot of shots you can dive for but when you know it's so far over your head basically what you’re doing is turning to see if the ball hits the post and then you can react after that."

Bob Wilson, Arsenal's goalkeeping coach: "What you have to do as a keeper is make that area appear smaller to a striker, but with Dennis Bergkamp, he knew how to do the exact reverse of that.

"If I come out as a keeper I’m closing down the angle, but he knows that there are two areas where the keeper can’t get near. Top left, top right. Dennis would find them. Dennis knew where a goal was without looking, and he also could think from a goalkeeper’s point of view.
"Whatever a goalie did, Dennis had the ability to find the space in the goal where the keeper couldn't get to. It was the total reverse of what the keeper was trying to do through an understanding of the exact geometry of the goal. He could expand the goal. It was like he had cracked our code."

Keller: "When we’re trying to narrow the angle as a keeper what we are also doing is greatly increasing the space behind you, and what you’re saying to yourself is I think it’s far more difficult for the player to put this over my head and get it back down under the crossbar than it is around me, so I’m going to narrow the angle for him to get it around me, and if for some reason he’s able to put it over my head and get it back down again, then I’ll just shake his hand afterwards.

"There are times when a ball comes off an opponent's foot and you think: ‘Oh man, I’m in trouble’. That was one of those occasions, because of the height of the ball. Shots that are wide of you you think: ‘Maybe I could get a touch if I chase it down or get a great leap', but when it’s over your head that’s when you start to say: 'Go over, hit the post, please', because there’s nothing you can do about it.'
Claridge:"He just bent it top bag and you think: ‘Cor, blimey’. I had a really good look at it as I was up towards the halfway line. I could see exactly what was going on.

"There was no way you could stop that. Moments like that you take on the chin and say: 'No-one could do anything about that'".
Dixon: "I was stood on the halfway line but actually in a way that was quite a cool position to watch from because although I was far away I was the only person with that view. Everyone else is sitting in the stand or close to it, but i had a perfect view standing on the halfway line with it all in front of me.

"I just remember it coming out to him and he opened his body up a little bit and hitting this ridiculous shot straight in the top corner. But with Dennis, it was one of those that when the ball was on the way to him, you’d work out the space he’s got and the fact that it’s him, and you kind of think yeah he’ll probably score this, so it wasn’t that big a surprise that it went in. It was just Dennis has done what Dennis does, great 1-0.
"Not to have a go at the Leicester defenders, but if Dennis was playing against us and standing on the edge of the box, I wouldn’t be very happy. I’d prefer him in the box because he could head the ball and he scored some headers but that certainly wasn’t his best attribute, so I’d much prefer him on the penalty spot than the edge of the area. I’d certainly be conscious of him on the edge of the box if he was playing against me.
"He scored that type of goal everyday in training. Literally every day. It was just a joke. So on the training pitch you’d just make sure you had the same coloured bib as him and you’d be two or three up before you’d even started."

Winterburn: "We never practised what I would class as a short corner like that so he must have just decided to do it off the cuff. And then he just takes a touch and curls it in the top corner.

"Where he’s standing he’s completely free, and I assure you that’s not something we worked on. But Dennis had that incredible ability to find space. Give him that space he has that ability to be able to produce that sort of finish. He did it on many occasions, so it wasn’t really a surprise that he finished it with that aplomb. It was a terrific finish.

"Those sort of goals would happen all the time in a training game. We would do a lot of small-sided games, and you knew in training if you gave Dennis that sort of space then he had the quality to score those sort of goals or pick out the final pass."
'He got into areas where you couldn't pick him up'
Parlour:"He got into areas where people would find it very hard to pick him up. Those days you only had two in central midfield so it was a lot harder for people to mark you, and the opposition centre-backs wouldn’t want to do it.
"Dennis could peel off and find areas where it was harder for either the midfielders or centre-backs to mark him. Nowadays you have holding midfielders and there’s not as much space as there was a few years ago.
"He wasn’t someone who would be scoring headers, he was more creatively minded. It was more about setting people up, and scoring long-range goals. He was more of an outside the box man."

He scored that type of goal everyday in training. Literally every day. It was just a joke. So on the training pitch you’d just make sure you had the same coloured bib as himLee Dixon
David Winner, co-author of Stillness and Speed: "For that first goal, Dennis goes to Overmars because he was loitering and he notices that no-one’s picking him up so he thinks I’m going to try that if no-one sees me, so play it to me.

"He’s got it in his mind before he does it, and he’s calm enough and communicative enough to see it through."
Bergkamp in Stillness and Speed: "On the field my greatest quality was seeing where the space was, knowing where you can create space. That’s something I’m constantly focused on now as a trainer, too: where is the space in the opposing team? Is it behind the defence, between the central defenders and the backs, or in front of the defenders in between the lines?"

Claridge: "He played just off a frontman, and would play in the space that Wright, Anelka etc had vacated. To do that you have to have this peripheral vision and be aware of everything around you and have exceptional spatial awareness. Very few players have got that.
"He got into areas where you couldn’t pick him up. That first goal is a very unusual place for a striker to be in at a corner."
Bergkamp: "I got the ball from Marc from a corner, and I was outside the box and just tried to bend it in.
“When you're in form, when you feel good, when you hit that ball you know it's going to be very close to scoring a goal. It's just a little bit of luck that it's just outside the goalkeeper."

"That’s the conundrum for the opposition - if you don’t man mark him how do you stop him receiving the ball because he floats between the lines and it asks defenders whether they’ll be brave enough to come out and almost be left man marking him. That leaves other players in behind you, so as a defender a floating player can become an absolute nightmare, particularly if you have the ability to influence a game like Dennis.
"Dennis takes up positions that makes the pass simple for you, as he did for Patrick for that second goal. He puts himself in positions where he’s completely comfortable he can receive the ball."

Bergkamp on Arsenal.com:"The second one was a good one as well.At the time of that match I felt that physically you could make a difference every game. You could outrun players. You could just be much better than other players."
In Stillness and Speed, he says: "[Later on at Arsenal] My pace wasn’t really important in the role I had, though sometimes I showed it and people were surprised.

Bergkamp makes it 2-0 after 61 minutes

Leicester had been pushing for an equaliser, but with just over an hour gone Bergkamp skips in front of Pontus Kamark to collect a Patrick Vieira pass and bears down on Keller in the Leicester goal. Bergkamp just gets to the ball first and his shot loops off Keller into the back of the net.
Winterburn: "He was quicker than people thought and he could exploit space unbelievably well. That second goal at Leicester comes at the end of a great breakaway move and Dennis’s movement to get the chance is excellent.

"With players like Dennis you can go a lot tighter in small-sided games but it’s more difficult in match situations, because Dennis is the type of player that if you push onto him then he’ll drop into other areas of the pitch where defenders are just not supposed to go, and that creates space for other players.

"It’s so difficult because he puts himself in that space between defenders and midfielders to find that little bit of freedom.
"That’s the conundrum for the opposition - if you don’t man mark him how do you stop him receiving the ball because he floats between the lines and it asks defenders whether they’ll be brave enough to come out and almost be left man marking him. That leaves other players in behind you, so as a defender a floating player can become an absolute nightmare, particularly if you have the ability to influence a game like Dennis.
"Dennis takes up positions that makes the pass simple for you, as he did for Patrick for that second goal. He puts himself in positions where he’s completely comfortable he can receive the ball."

Bergkamp on Arsenal.com:"The second one was a good one as well.At the time of that match I felt that physically you could make a difference every game. You could outrun players. You could just be much better than other players."
In Stillness and Speed, he says: "[Later on at Arsenal] My pace wasn’t really important in the role I had, though sometimes I showed it and people were surprised.


"But I was quite a conventional player as a young teenager. The main thing was my pace. I could go past a defender, or a pass would be played behind the full-back and I could beat him that way. Quite conventional skills, really.

"I had a way of running that enabled me to get away very fast, faster than my opponents. It was something that just came naturally. I didn’t learn to run like that at the athletics club. There they told me: ‘You run beautifully, very naturally'".
Wilson: "When a ball was coming to him and you didn't need to show extraordinary skill to control it, when it was nearly textbook, he was often on the turn before the ball had actually arrived at whatever part of the body he was actually going to control the ball with. That's what happened for the second goal against Leicester.

Dennis was quicker than people thought and he could exploit space unbelievably well.Nigel Winterburn
"He was actually already on the move and he would always be aware of close marking. Time and again he would have a close marker who would either foul him or Dennis would be on the turn and would have already evaded him by his ability. As the ball was being delivered to him, he would have assessed what was in front of him, what was behind him, what was to his right and to his left. It is an extraordinary gift. There’s one thing having peripheral vision, but it’s another thing having what appeared to be 360."

Dixon:"Dennis had a very wide gait on him where he was really difficult to get off the ball because when he got level with you, he was quite bony and strong and so he obviously wasn’t ripped with muscles but he was sinewy, not an ounce of fat on him, and he was very strong.
"If you were level with him, he’d push his arms out and be away from you the next minute. And he had really strong legs so any amount of kicking he could run through it. He was a proper athlete, he really was."

Claridge: "Bergkamp had that Glenn Hoddle strength."

Parker: "He was steps ahead of everyone else and knew what he was going to do before he had even received the ball. Most people have a touch and then think about what they’re going to do, whereas he just knew. His footballing brain was second to none."
Bergkamp makes it 3-2 in stoppage time
After a late rally had brought Leicester level, David Platt plays a diagonal ball, which Bergkamp controls with his right foot and then takes a touch on his left to completely wrong-foot Leicester defender Matt Elliott. Bergkamp then takes another touch with his left foot to set himself before cooly putting his finish too high for Keller.

Bergkamp on Arsenal.com:"My third one was really, really good. It was a good pass from David Platt. My first touch, or anyone's first touch, that's the most important thing in the game I feel, I still feel. And that first touch was important to make the move complete.
He said in a Four Four Two interview in 2011: "The goal was pure, but there was luck with the Newcastle one. Against Leicester, when the pass came I knew what I wanted to do: control, ball inside, finish.

“It’s like solving a puzzle. I always had a picture in my head of how things would look two or three seconds later. I could calculate it. There’s a tremendous pleasure in doing something that someone else couldn’t see.”
Keller:I was never a goalkeeper who played way up off my line so it’s not like I was in any kind of position when the ball came in to come and claim it when Dennis peeled off to the left to receive it.

"I didn’t think I was out of position, I wasn't scrambling to get back or anything. I was very comfortable when the ball came across to Dennis, and I could see that Matt was in a good position as well. As a goalkeeper when you see defenders in good positions, you just let them do their jobs because so much about what they're doing is just trying to delay, make the striker take another touch, wait for another defender to come across, make the odds that much more difficult for him to pull off the chance or the chance can go away.
"As that long diagonal ball comes across, Matt slides over and I slide over to where I want to be. Then the second touch flicks the ball past Matt, and I’m thinking: ‘Did he just do what I think he just did?’ Taking the ball out of the air from a 40-50 yard diagonal ball, and then you think: 'Ok no problem what’s he going to do now?' So then I try and narrow the angle but he just hooks it into the other corner.
"When you concede, even with such a remarkable goal you are so disappointed. Only afterwards did I think: ‘Wow, that was a special goal that people are going to talk about for a long time’.

Matt slides over and I slide over to where I want to be. Then the second touch flicks the ball past Matt, and I’m thinking: ‘Did he just do what I think he just did?’Kasey Keller
Bergkamp in Stillness and Speed:"You have to take it inside because the defender is storming [the other] way. He's running with you and as soon as the ball changes direction,and you change direction as well, then he's gone, which gives you an open chance. Well, it's a little bit on the side but it gives you a chance to shoot.

"Geometry is what I like, of course. It’s certainly a passion. Maybe it’s my biggest passion. But there are so many other things: the pace of the ball, the touch. It’s not only down to maths. In football it worked out well for me, but is it geometry? It’s also the pleasure of knowing what other people can do and are going to do."
Winterburn: "For the third goal he makes that little diagonal run telling Platt that the pass is on, and asking him: 'Can you deliver it'? From there, it’s just incredible.

"I remember it now very clearly. It's one of the goals I always talk about when people ask me about Dennis. If it’s young kids who have never seen him play I just say go on YouTube and watch that hat-trick and it will tell you everything you need to know.
"I started clapping, just appreciating how good a trick it was. I knew Dennis was capable of that so it came as no surprise but occasionally you still stand there and puff your cheeks out and say: 'Wow'. It didn’t surprise me but it was still unbelievable to see it happen, and the way he executed it.

Bergkamp in Stillness and Speed: "I really love that [Roger] Federer way of playing. To have such control that you can trick a goalkeeper, trick the opponent. Like Federer’s drop volleys, the little disguised lob. To be able to do something like that, yeah...to do something that others don’t do or don’t understand or aren’t capable of doing. That’s my interest; not following but creating your own thing."

Bergkamp completes his hat-trick with one of the best goals of the Premier League era
Dixon:"Nothing Dennis did ever surprised me. The excitement in that moment at Filbert Street was not watered down as such, but you just think: ‘Oh yeah Dennis has got one of his goals’ rather than...you know if I’d gone and done that, one it would never have happened but also the rest of the team would have been running around the pitch celebrating for the next hour! With Dennis I kind of knew what he was going to do when the ball came over.

"He was on his left foot, I thought he’s just going to let the defender come in and hit it past him, and he’ll put it in the far corner. The next moment it was like, yeah that’s what he did.

"He knew better than to do that sort of stuff to me and Nigel in training. Instead he went for Martin Keown and there were absolute ructions between those two. Martin had a thing about marking him, and Dennis would always go and stand on him, and they’d have a proper slugging match and invariably Dennis would come out on top.

"Fair play to Martin, he was the only one that wanted to mark him. ‘Go and stand on Martin’ we’d say and he would, and then we’d kind of know what was going to happen and he preferred to take the mickey out of Martin.
"Dennis scored goals like that last Leicester one and the Newcastle one against all of us in training. It was the sort of thing where after you wouldn’t really know what he’s done."

Bergkamp remains calm after scoring his and Arsenal's third
Parlour:"It's one thing doing outstanding things in training - even I could do that occasionally - but do it in a game and score a hat-trick like that was very memorable. The awareness to not only make the run for Platt but then to be able to bring it back onto his right foot and then chip it over the keeper. Just different class.

"It’s a lot harder to do it in a game than in training where everyone’s relaxed. To do it in a game is so much tougher because if you try something and don’t score it then everyone’s going ‘well why have you done that. Why haven’t you crossed it or whatever?’ That’s the difference, in training and in a match."

Wilson: "I often see ball jugglers, who we often have at the charity events we do. You’ll watch them bounce it on his shoulder, bounce it on his head, bounce it on his bum and he’s caught it on his heel, caught it on his foot. Dennis could do all those things!
"I can see the third goal against Leicester in my mind’s eye, I can visualise it perfectly. That’s the extraordinary thing, I can remember players and could tell you ‘Nobby Stiles used to do this’ or whatever it is, but I can actually close my eyes and see it. You can see it, you can visualise it, you will never ever forget it. It’s absolutely embedded in your psyche and your brain.

"Dennis was a multi-diamond, his control of a football, his awareness of space, which a lot of players don’t really realise now. Don Howe was excellent on the awareness of space, and Dennis had this natural ability to know everything that was going on around him.
"And if a ball was delivered to him it could come at almost any height, any pace and he would deal with it - as he showed so beautifully against Leicester."

Claridge: "Most goals you can see that there’s a mistake there or something more that could have been done or it could have been stopped. But there are others like that one where it’s just sheer brilliance and you go: 'There’s nothing anyone could do about that’ and put you hands up.
"Even when you’re playing in a game like that you understand that it’s something a little bit special.
The hat-trick was an encapsulation of everything he did so brilliantly, and with Dennis you were always thinking that you would have to drag a superlative out of the thesaurusMartin Tyler

"At the end of a season you can usually count on hand the moments of brilliance that you can’t do anything about. You’ll get the 25-yard rocket shot, you’ll get the volley etc. We had three of them in one game!"
Parker: "At the time you're thinking: ‘What a b****** he is for doing that!’ In a nice way I mean of course. You think we’re going to hold on for a draw and he goes on and does that.

"Not many players get the better of Matt Elliott like that. Whenever he talks about it, Matt says it’s the best goal scored against him ever. Matt was a very good defender, but Dennis made him look a bit stupid. He made it look so easy.

"In jest we wound Matt up but really we knew it was just a fantastic goal, and you hold your hands up. Even our fans clapped it, it was that good.
Martin Tyler, commentator: "The hat-trick was an encapsulation of everything that he did so brilliantly, and by the time of the third goal you know you’re having a good night when you try something like that and it comes off. It was a perfect evening for him. He was an absolute joy to commentate on, whenever, wherever it was.

"With him when you were commentating, you always expected something special and you were thinking that you would have to drag a superlative out of the thesaurus. I ran out of superlatives for him. Words become clichés if you’re not careful, but he was special. He was a one-off."
What happened next?

Amazingly Leicester found a second stoppage-time equaliser and the match finished 3-3. Bergkamp though had done something truly special and his hat-trick was viewed contemporaneously as a transcendental moment. Arsenal fan and 'Fever Pitch' author Nick Hornby, who was at the game, wrote soon after in Dutch publication 'Hard gras' that English football supporters are obsessed with what happens in the past (I can't think what he means) and in the future but very rarely in the present. Against Leicester though, Bergkamp did the impossible and through his brilliance "the present had arrived."

Bergkamp kept supporters' focus squarely on the present throughout the rest of the 1997-98 season and he won the PFA and FWA Player of the Year awards as he inspired Arsenal to the double. He retired in 2006 with three Premier League titles and four FA Cups to his name.
Bergkamp: "Three goals, a hat-trick. I was very pleased, but we didn't win the game so it was always mixed emotions afterwards."
Parlour: "We were more disappointed after the game because we hadn’t won rather than too happy about Dennis’s hat-trick. We didn’t even think about Dennis goals, we just thought we’ve dropped two points here and were pretty gutted.

Arsenal were furious about the amount of time added on at the end of the match
"But 1997-98 was a great season for us as we won the double in Wenger’s first full year. It was a very special team, and we didn’t get that many injuries so could largely play the same sort of team. It was a very structured team in that sense and Dennis was a huge part of why we did the double. He was instrumental in so many games.

"He was a brilliant lad, great in the dressing room as well, and superb for the team. He was Arsenal through and through and that hat-trick summarised him, he was top class."

Winterburn:"Dennis was the best player I ever played with. He was calm, cool, calculated, ruthless - a lot more than people thought. He was a real gentleman but he had a nasty side to him. I don’t mean in a horrible way but in a ruthless way, and we saw that in the Steve Lomas elbow [against West Ham in 1998]."

He was a brilliant lad, great in the dressing room as well, and superb for the team. He was Arsenal through and through and that hat-trick summarised him, he was top class.Ray Parlour
Dixon:"Bergkamp was the best. When Thierry Henry says Bergkamp is best player he’s played with that kind of sums it up."
Wilson: "It's games like the Leicester game that make me say without hesitation that for all-round ability Bergkamp was the greatest player Arsenal ever had.

"Character plays a big part within a great footballer’s demeanor, and this guy was very bright. He understood not just the Dutch way but came to understand the English way as well - about London, Arsenal, the Premier League and everything that went with it.
"And actually for the manager, he was a player who absolutely epitomised everything Wenger wakes up thinking about and goes to sleep thinking about."

Tyler: "We’ve gone through the phases of no foreigners, and then a certain number of stellar foreigners, and then now we have a majority of foreigners.
"Dennis was in that middle period, and he absolutely transformed things. He took a little while to get going, but once he got going..."

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