By Myles Palmer
A career in football is a mixture of frustration and fulfillment and today feels like a Dennis day.
I expect Bergkamp to score or make the crucial goal at the Millennium Stadium against Chelsea.
This game is seen by the whole world and Dennis Bergkamp is a world famous player whose elegant creativity deserves to be seen by the world.
Form is temporary, class is permanent, and DENNIS BERGKAMP IS A CLASS PLAYER IN SPARKLING FORM RIGHT NOW.
And he is hugely motivated for this big day.
If Dennis plays a global pass to Freddie today, the Swede will score a global goal, despite the brilliance of Italian keeper Carlo Cudicini.
The goal will be exciting, decisive, memorable- I hope!
That’s what I see this game boiling down to. I see from that last preposition that that my grammar is in meltdown this morning.
That’s because I’m about to rush downstairs and watch Gazetta Football Italia on Channel 4, with James Richardson, my favourite sports presenter.
The kids, Michael and Caroline, have gone to Cardiff, leaving Hammersmith at 7.30 this morning in Stewart’s Saab with a young lad called Leo.
My best friend Doug is coming round to watch it here, bringing Kate, his wife.
Doug, Kate and I used to be Chelsea fans and we often had trouble getting up on Saturday mornings.
We would get up very late,grab a taxi from our flat in Gloucester Place to the Kings Road, get stuck in a traffic jam at five to three, and then jump out and run to Stamford Bridge to see Alan Hudson and Peter Osgood, our favourite players.
Later on Doug and Kate got married and had two cats called Alan and Ossie….
4th May 2002