Two years ago Arsenal opened their new stadium and said a classy goodbye to one of the finest players in their history.
As you know, Dennis Bergkamp was a goal-maker, an icon, a scorer of memorable goals.
As you know, Dennis is now back at his first club.
He’s Marco van Basten’s assistant at Ajax.
As you may know, I’ve written three new chapters for The Professor, which was re-published by Virgin this week.
The original book was a Before and After book. Since football moves on very, very quickly, and many important things are simplified or forgotten, I wanted to show what Arsenal was like before Arsene Wenger arrived in 1996, and to summarise what the manager had been doing before 1996.That would make it more readable, more of a story.
The previous edition, which I was sure would be the final version of the book, had 12 chapters and a Prologue. Each chapter had to have a name that would make sense in 2005 and also in the future. I found those choices tricky at times. In choosing the chapter titles, it was important not to be too clever.
I thought about The Who’s greatest hits album , which in the USA was called Meaty, Beaty Big & Bouncy. It should have been called The Who’s Greatest Hits.
It’s often better to go with something obvious, and that was what I did with the new Chapter 14. Of all them, the title of Chapter 13 took the longest to decide, and in the end it isn’t a particularly good title for that chapter. But I still can’t think of a better one.
The Professor has 416 pages including the index :
Preface
Prologue : Mission Statement
1. France.
2. Japan
3. Booze and ignorance
4.1996-97 The season of analysis
5.1997-98 The season of the Double
6.1998-99 The season of Anelka
7.1999-2000 The season of Henry
8. 2000-01 The season of rotation
9. 2001-02 The season of the squad
10. 2002-2003 The season of 15 draws
11. 2003-04 The season of 38 games unbeaten
12.2004-05 The season of Fabregas and Senderos
13.2005-06 Real Madrid, Juventus, Barcelona
14.2006-07 The first season at the Emirates Stadium
15.2007-08 Another developmental season
Extract from 2006-2007: FIRST SEASON AT THE EMIRATES STADIUM
The Emirates Stadium took 123 weeks to build. It cost £390 million and was completed on time and on budget by award-winning contractor Sir Robert McAlpine.
The complex covered seventeen acres, the sightlines were fantastic, the specially-designed “Arsenal seat” was super-comfortable with generous legroom, and, since a football match is a social occasion as well as a sports event, the architects allowed fans to walk round inside the ground and meet up with friends.
There were 60,432 seats, compared to 38,500 at Highbury, with 150 executive boxes holding 2,212 people, as well as 7,100 seats at Club Level, which cost from £2,500 to £4,750 a season. In the luxurious Diamond Club an elite 168 members had seats on the halfway line and the use of their own restaurant, bar, lounge and private balcony. The corporate hospitality areas, between the lower and upper tiers, generated more income than the whole of Highbury, and allowed the club to repay the loans and give Thierry Henry a new four-year contract on £120,000 a week. Henry had known he was in a very strong negotiating position before the Emirates opened.
On July 22, the club gave Dennis Bergkamp a splendid testimonial against Ajax where there was a festival atmosphere with the sell-out crowd saying thanks to a genuine guy who was, like Tony Adams, an irreplaceable team player. Ian Wright owed him a lot and so did Anelka, Overmars, Vieira, Parlour and Ljungberg. For every footballer like Bergkamp there are 100 who move around for big signing-on fees and kiss different badges every two years.
Czech midfielder Tomas Rosicky, 26, had signed from Borussia Dortmund on May 23 after activating a £6.8 million clause in his contract, replacing Robert Pires, 32, who left after six seasons to join Villarreal on a two-year deal. Lehmann especially welcomed Rosicky, another German speaker, since he had been the sole translator for Hleb up till then.
The first Premier League game was Aston Villa and expectations were high, nerves were jangling, and when Lehmann made a mistake on a corner, Olof Mellberg headed the first league goal at the Emirates. Substitute Theo Walcott saved the day when he set up Gilberto to make it 1-1.
In a Champions League qualifying game away to Dinamo Zagreb, Fabregas had scored twice in a 3-0 win. In the return leg, Eduardo drilled a left-foot shot past Almunia, Ljungberg headed in a Robin van Persie free-kick, and sub Walcott fizzed a ball across for Flamini to smash in for 2-1.
At Manchester City, Henry hit Nicky Weaver’s legs with his first chance, put his second wide, and had another effort saved by Weaver before a van Persie shot hit the post. Hoyte’s clumsy turn flattened Trevor Sinclair, Joey Barton converted the penalty, Toure headed against the bar and Henry had eight goal attempts. “We should have won that game easy,” said Henry, before launching into a series of excuses and moans.
With Edelman controlling Arsenal’s business, David Dein was no longer involved in the day-to-day running of the club but he continued to work on transfers with Wenger. Ashley Cole was still one of the best footballers of his generation and the manager wanted to keep him. On May 16, the Evening Standard had reported that Arsenal would tell the Premier League inquiry into the “tapping -up” affair that they had been negotiating a new contract with Cole, but his agent Jonathan Barnett wanted Arsenal to pay him £150,000 a year for each of the five years of Cole’s proposed new contract. Since “Colegate” was possibly the most flagrant breach of transfer regulations in English football history, the board were not inclined to pay Barnett £750,000 to re-sign a player who had been with Arsenal since he was nine.
On August 31, Dein and Wenger made two deadline-day deals, swapping Cole for William Gallas and £5 million, and exchanging Reyes for his pal Julio Baptista of Real Madrid, with both clubs having options to buy after one season. Sol Campbell signed to Portsmouth, taking £80,000 a week off Wenger’s wage bill. The board allowed their prudent manager to control the entire playing budget, covering transfers and wages, so that what he saved in one way he could spend in another. In one summer he had lost five of the Invincibles : Pires, Campbell, Cole, Reyes, and Bergkamp.
The Professor took 10 years to write. As well as the new chapters, it has a new preface and new photos.
Most of the book is about what Arsene did with his players, what he said about them, what they said about him, what they said about each other.
In 1997-98, what he did with Bergkamp was fantastic. He changed his team in a radical way. He also did something radical last season. And I modestly believe that my book is the only one that explains why he did these things, and how he did them.
The Professor is available for £5.99.