Monday, November 28, 2011

Gary Speed!

For many, Gary Speed was the ideal professional. A man whose career, and a glittering one at that was rooted to the back pages of the paper. No controversy, no animosity, just a very talented, humble Welshman playing football.

With this in mind, the news of his suicide yesterday hit many as a sharp, numbing shock, leading many into a state of stunned silence. Ex-teammates, managers and those amongst his Welsh squad mourned and grieved, with Robbie Savage and Shay Given finding it all a step too much, both visually showing tear-filled eyes during the day.

For Speed, who was capped 85 times for Wales, 2nd all time, his untimely demise coincided with him guiding the national team to their most successful spell since the days of Mark Hughes, and the near misses of 2004, a team Speed captained.

With clichés aplenty, and tributes more, the “football doesn’t matter at this time” quote was on offer more than DFS furniture. A statement that really aggrieves me, as football, Speed’s profession, now funds his wife, and 2 sons days, given them financial security for the foreseeable future, a silver lining if there was to be one.

Speed started his career at Leeds, where he spent the longest spell of his playing days, then a short stint at Everton preceded a spell up in Tyneside with Newcastle, for whom he made over 250 appearances for in a 6 year stint. He would than move onto Bolton Wanderers before ending his career at Sheffield United in 2008.

As a player Speed was the first to play 500 Premier League games, he now sits third on the all time list. He won the league championship in 1992 with Leeds United, and holds a proud record of scoring in every Premier League season he participated in.

Moving on into management, a coaching stint under Kevin Blackwell, who referred to him, Speed and Sam Ellis as “the three musketeers" led to Speed becoming the Blades’ manager after Blackwell’s dismissal. The managerial debut was short lived, as the lure and drive to manager his country was one Speed, a proud Welshman couldn’t pass on.

Under Speed, Wales reformed and repackaged themselves as a young team with hunger passion, characteristics the manager displayed, and one the players followed. His captain Aaron Ramsey tweeted how “the world lost a great football manager, but more sadly, a great man”. This, a sentiment echoed by many around the football world, with Alan Shearer saying he had the ability “to light up a room”.

Whatever the reason for Speed’s passing, whatever mental fragility he had, whatever demons he was facing, he put on a brave face, a smile and was always a professional, ambassador of not just Welsh football, but football as a whole.

A man who will never be forgotten.

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