Arsene Wenger was ‘dismissive’ to Arsenal hero he signed and moaned about odd requests

close relationship with his players was a major factor behind their success in the early 2000s, chiefly their incredible ‘Invincible’ season in 2003-04.

But as Dennis Bergkamp experienced during his time in north London, not every player was viewed so favourably by the Frenchman.

Keith Edelman, ‘s ex-managing director and CEO between 2000 and 2008, recalled how Bergkamp’s fear of flying caused a logistical nightmare for the club and his manager – which even saw him boycott European games if they were too far to travel by land.

On one occasion, the squad flew to Cardiff, Wales, for the FA Cup final at the Millennium Stadium. However, Bergkamp was forced to travel by car with his wife due to his reluctance to fly – earning him the nickname ‘The Non-Flying Dutchman’ – and his special requirements allegedly left Wenger feeling irritated.

“You’d get some bizarre things. In those days, it was all jets and players would fly everywhere,” Edelman told Express Sport.

“If it was a close visit, we’d go by coach but if it was Manchester, Leeds or , they always go by plane. Then you had the logistics of Dennis going by coach, which had to be arranged [separately].

“I’ll never forget, we were going to a cup final and Mrs Bergkamp rang me up and said ‘where’s my car parking pass? Because I’ve got to drive Dennis back’. And I was thinking ‘oh bloody hell, surely someone else can sort this out, it’s not a CEO’s job’.

“Arsene always used to moan about Dennis, saying ‘I don’t know how he’s going to live life. He’s got a young family that wants to go to Disney World in America and he can’t fly!’. He was always quite dismissive of Dennis.”

While Bergkamp may have been calm on the pitch, he was left with crippling anxiety whenever he got on a plane. In his first season in England, Bergkamp revealed he was seeking help from a psychiatrist to get to the root of the problem.

In 2013, the Dutchman further elaborated about his condition in his autobiography, revealing that his traumatic experience of travelling on small planes at Inter Milan was a trigger for his phobia.

“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,” he wrote. “And 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.

He added: “In talks with , if I said [I wanted] ‘a million’ they automatically deducted a hundred grand ‘because you don’t fly’. And I accepted that.”

Despite his apparent grievance with Bergkamp’s refusal to fly, Edelman had nothing but praise for the way Wenger conducted himself – having worked with him for eight of the Frenchman’s 22-year reign at .

“He was a highly professional individual. Very, very knowledgeable and bright. I don’t think I ever saw him fly off the handle,” he added.

“He was very intense, and he was a winner, he wanted to win every game. I think he could get pretty feisty. But in every way of life, he is a considered and intelligent man.”

Edelman, now 74, has landed a new role away from football. He has taken up a position with the country’s leading keynote speakers’ agency, , to deliver speeches in the business world.

The collaboration will see Keith become a leading speaker for the company, where he will share details and anecdotes from his wide-ranging career, which has encompassed working in retail, leisure, property, consumer goods, and across the media.