A little snippet on his flying fears from his book:

'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", writes the 44-year-old.'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 adds: 'I've flown countless times in large planes, small ones, tiny ones. At Ajax, I once flew in a minuscule plane over Mount Etna near Naples when we got into a terrible air pocket – in terms of flying, I've seen and done it all and I'm simply not flying again. Ever.'

The Dutchman - who spent 11 years in north London before retiring in 2006 - also revealed that he would waive extra money when signing new contracts because of his aerophobia.

Bergkamp adds: 'In talks with Arsenal, if I said "a million" they automatically deducted a hundred grand "because you don't fly". And I accepted that.'