Stillness & Speed - My Story, Dennis BergkampAll young lads who like football will tell you there is a point in there football supporting life normally around there early to middle teams that they notice players more probably due to the fact that it is at that age when they think that they could be a professional football and I am no different although the one major dribbling point for me at this age was I actually wasn't very good as a footballer! Any way at that age I started to notice footballer more for there skills and what not and one player who certainly had the skills was Dennis Bergkamp the Dutch player maker that never really came to prominence in this country until his second season with Arsenal where he really came into his own as Arsene Wenger started to build his squad towards the eventual record breaking invincibles team that went on to be a dominating team on England in the 2003-04 season where the Dutch midfielder showed the EPL what a truly fantastic player he is.
So stillness and speed is his autobiography by David Winner, originally a Dutch language book by Jaap Visser that resembles war and peace for its size due to the detail and the large selection of photographs charting Dennis life. The books charts Bergkamp remarkable journey from Ajax's famed academy to the English Capitol via Milan where he endured 2 unsuccessful seasons in an Inter team that wanted to emulate their City rivals AC and play beautiful passing football that Dennis is more suited to but without actually being very good! The book also talks about his time in Oranje where he should of been a winner of both the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European championships but the Dutch team fell at both hurdles when they where by far the better team of the competition and coincidently both trophies where won by Les Bleus and even by there own players admissions the Dutch should of won both tournament. The book isn't all about Dennis Bergkamp's views it's full of interviews and quotes from former managers, players giving the book a very balanced feel and not one where the protagonist is the hero of that makes sense, Bergkamps opinions are challenged then the counter argument is put to Bergkamp for his views. Overall this is one of the better Autobiographies that I have read by a footballer and is truly worth reading even if your not a fan of Arsenal or even Bergkamp's this truly shows what a player he was in his prime and certainly one of the Premier leagues true greats. The book show this often misunderstood mercurial genius as a charming and very likeable man who is actually nothing like the image of a shy angry moody player that came across when you watched he ply his talents on the pitch. One other positive note about the book is that even in this Kindle version all the original photographs from the paperback copy of the book are included at the end, this isn't something I have seen before In kindle books and was my only major gripe about the Kindle platform so this is a added bonus and one I am hoping other books will follow suit by doing the same. |
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