Gary Speed
Gary Speed was probably few people's absolute favourite footballer. But he would have been in many people's Top 5 or Top 10, admired by supporters of all the clubs he played for and loved by his countrymen, and more importantly hated by no one. As a player he was for the most part unspectacular, a surging midfielder in his early years, he sat deeper as his career progressed, only embodying his surname while at Leeds United. He always had a sweet left foot and a good goal scoring ratio for a central midfielder, and was a notably good header of the ball.
I once ranked him in the Top 10 players in the Premier League's history, but was, correctly, brought up on this. There have been too many other players who have excelled in the upper echelons, whereas Speed spent most of his career in the second tier of clubs, there and there abouts, but not champion material. Nevertheless, he was an outstanding international, and excellent for Newcastle United in their brief manifestation as a Champions League contender.
For a long time he was the leader in all time Premier League appearances, only lately overtaken by David James and his countryman Ryan Giggs. He shares with Giggs the distinction of not once having been sent off in all those appearances, which says everything you need to know about his steady, calm approach on the field.
Which is what makes today's news all the more shocking. Football has a propensity sometimes for over-sentimentality, to wearing its grief brazenly on its sleeve, with a minute's silence here, a black armband there for any deceased ex-pro or seemingly unconnected world event. But today, there is no sentimentality, just open-hearted shock and devastation. Rarely have I seen anything so desperate as Robbie Savage steeling himself to pay tribute in a BBC News studio before very quickly descending into mute, uncomprehending tears. Speed was his friend, as he seems to have been to everyone in football, from Shearer to Giggs and Given, to Craig Bellamy too upset to play today, to all the young players for whom he was proving a potentially outstanding international manager.
I'm not Welsh, nor a fan of any team Speed played for, but I am sure I'm not alone in finding this a horribly upsetting story. As a football fan, one doesn't sometimes appreciate how much these footballers are part of your life. Speed was always there, for 20 years playing solidly and fairly, beamed to our living rooms, then he was the guy speaking intelligently afterwards. Even after retirement, his profile remained high - after a false start in club management, and a bad start as manager of his national side, where you worried that, like Gareth Southgate, say, he might be one of these intelligent young ex-pros seemingly made for management, he might not cut it or be too nice, Wales were beginning to look like a force to be reckoned with, with three wins in a row. He has for many years been a go-to pundit for the BBC and one imagined him continuing in these dual roles for years to come. Everything was going right.
When Amy Winehouse died, though people felt shock and sadness, it was, in a way, not hard to process for all but those close to her. People said "well, it was inevitable", "I saw that coming", "that was the path she was on" etc, but with Gary Speed's death, the only possible reaction appears to be "What the fuck?" Maybe people will come out of the woodwork who will say they knew something, they saw something, but no one has done so far, and one suspects they'll be lying. Speed spent the day before he died amiably chatting away on Football Focus, texting his friends, not a hint of anything wrong. When I hear of someone committing suicide, I can't help but think of what they were going through beforehand, the days/weeks/months of torment, the prolonged dark night of the soul. But what is one meant to make of this? When was this dark night of the soul? OK - no more speculation. It's inappropriate. Something like a reason may in time emerge, and till then people should keep their theories to themselves.
Stan Collymore was on Twitter this week, speaking out about a bout of depression he was going through, and sometimes one forgets, when people are in the public eye, how much down time there is, how depression can take hold of people so quickly and for no apparent reason. Things that can appear sudden from an outsider's point of view can be anything but.
I'm also reminded of the former cricketer and journalist Peter Roebuck, whose suicide, jumping out of a hotel window, this month, stunned the cricket world. For Roebuck, the reason for his terrible reaction (being arrested) was immediately well known, and furthermore he was known to be a character of highs and lows, a man who wrote the foreword to a famous book on the high percentage of cricketers who commit suicide and at the end, eerily, denied that he himself was set for a premature demise.
But, of Speed, by all accounts, none of this can be said. Steady off the field as on it, many would say that, as, day by day, our heroes let us down in squalid tales, he embodied everything that was good about the game. Some friends of mine occasionally carry out a (somewhat distasteful) yearly list of 'Famous People Most Likely To Die This Year'. Gary Speed may have topped an alternative list of 'Famous People Least Likely To Die', so utterly did he embody the image of the well-adjusted, intelligent, healthy pro.
The comparison might be footling, but I think of what Bob Dylan said on the passing of Johnny Cash - "In plain terms, Johnny Cash was and is the Northern Star; you could guide your ship by him". In footballing terms, Gary Speed was the Northern Star. And if he embodied everything that was good about football, then what now has football got left?
I once ranked him in the Top 10 players in the Premier League's history, but was, correctly, brought up on this. There have been too many other players who have excelled in the upper echelons, whereas Speed spent most of his career in the second tier of clubs, there and there abouts, but not champion material. Nevertheless, he was an outstanding international, and excellent for Newcastle United in their brief manifestation as a Champions League contender.
For a long time he was the leader in all time Premier League appearances, only lately overtaken by David James and his countryman Ryan Giggs. He shares with Giggs the distinction of not once having been sent off in all those appearances, which says everything you need to know about his steady, calm approach on the field.
Which is what makes today's news all the more shocking. Football has a propensity sometimes for over-sentimentality, to wearing its grief brazenly on its sleeve, with a minute's silence here, a black armband there for any deceased ex-pro or seemingly unconnected world event. But today, there is no sentimentality, just open-hearted shock and devastation. Rarely have I seen anything so desperate as Robbie Savage steeling himself to pay tribute in a BBC News studio before very quickly descending into mute, uncomprehending tears. Speed was his friend, as he seems to have been to everyone in football, from Shearer to Giggs and Given, to Craig Bellamy too upset to play today, to all the young players for whom he was proving a potentially outstanding international manager.
I'm not Welsh, nor a fan of any team Speed played for, but I am sure I'm not alone in finding this a horribly upsetting story. As a football fan, one doesn't sometimes appreciate how much these footballers are part of your life. Speed was always there, for 20 years playing solidly and fairly, beamed to our living rooms, then he was the guy speaking intelligently afterwards. Even after retirement, his profile remained high - after a false start in club management, and a bad start as manager of his national side, where you worried that, like Gareth Southgate, say, he might be one of these intelligent young ex-pros seemingly made for management, he might not cut it or be too nice, Wales were beginning to look like a force to be reckoned with, with three wins in a row. He has for many years been a go-to pundit for the BBC and one imagined him continuing in these dual roles for years to come. Everything was going right.
When Amy Winehouse died, though people felt shock and sadness, it was, in a way, not hard to process for all but those close to her. People said "well, it was inevitable", "I saw that coming", "that was the path she was on" etc, but with Gary Speed's death, the only possible reaction appears to be "What the fuck?" Maybe people will come out of the woodwork who will say they knew something, they saw something, but no one has done so far, and one suspects they'll be lying. Speed spent the day before he died amiably chatting away on Football Focus, texting his friends, not a hint of anything wrong. When I hear of someone committing suicide, I can't help but think of what they were going through beforehand, the days/weeks/months of torment, the prolonged dark night of the soul. But what is one meant to make of this? When was this dark night of the soul? OK - no more speculation. It's inappropriate. Something like a reason may in time emerge, and till then people should keep their theories to themselves.
Stan Collymore was on Twitter this week, speaking out about a bout of depression he was going through, and sometimes one forgets, when people are in the public eye, how much down time there is, how depression can take hold of people so quickly and for no apparent reason. Things that can appear sudden from an outsider's point of view can be anything but.
I'm also reminded of the former cricketer and journalist Peter Roebuck, whose suicide, jumping out of a hotel window, this month, stunned the cricket world. For Roebuck, the reason for his terrible reaction (being arrested) was immediately well known, and furthermore he was known to be a character of highs and lows, a man who wrote the foreword to a famous book on the high percentage of cricketers who commit suicide and at the end, eerily, denied that he himself was set for a premature demise.
But, of Speed, by all accounts, none of this can be said. Steady off the field as on it, many would say that, as, day by day, our heroes let us down in squalid tales, he embodied everything that was good about the game. Some friends of mine occasionally carry out a (somewhat distasteful) yearly list of 'Famous People Most Likely To Die This Year'. Gary Speed may have topped an alternative list of 'Famous People Least Likely To Die', so utterly did he embody the image of the well-adjusted, intelligent, healthy pro.
The comparison might be footling, but I think of what Bob Dylan said on the passing of Johnny Cash - "In plain terms, Johnny Cash was and is the Northern Star; you could guide your ship by him". In footballing terms, Gary Speed was the Northern Star. And if he embodied everything that was good about football, then what now has football got left?
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