However, the attacking midfielder/second striker could have played for Chelsea instead.
Agent Jerome Anderson, who took Bergkamp to Arsenal, recalled a story on talkSPORT, saying: Dennis' hero as a young man growing up was Glenn Hoddle.
As a young man he loved wearing the no.10 shirt, finally, having suffered a difficult time in Italy, he decided that he'd like to come and play in England.
Dennis' situation was this. He had agreed, and we had all agreed that he would sign for Chelsea and literally on the day of coming over with his wife, he wouldn't fly anymore so he was driving, I got a call from the then managing director Colin Hutchinson.
He said we still want to sign Dennis but we don't have the money. That was a real shock as we'd worked on the deal for a long time.
I put my thinking cap on and thought 'right, we've got Dennis coming over from abroad with his wife, he's driving, it's going to take several hours'.
I phoned his personal Dutch agent and explained what happened and said I've got an idea, would you give me permission to speak to an institutional club which is Arsenal and he said of course."