So much has been said and written about the tragic death of Gary Speed this week that it’s difficult to know where to begin in adding to it. His death is still completely incomprehensible to me, and I can’t even begin to imagine what his family and friends must be going through. It’s a horrible, horrible thing to have happened, and I really don’t know what else can be said. So…I won’t say anything else about it. What I’ll do instead is look back on a man who was not only one of the best players of the Premier League era, but also one of the most fondly remembered.
I didn’t know Gary Speed personally in any way, shape or form, but he played for my football club, Newcastle United, for six years. Now, I think most football supporters will attest to this : when someone plays for your club as long as he did for mine, you can’t help but develop a strange sort of connection with them. Contrary to beliefs around the country, NUFC fans don’t ask for too much from their players. We simply hope for a certain amount of ability, combined with a willingness to work your arse off for the cause…while hopefully being professional and doing nothing to sully the club’s good name. In Gary Speed, we had all of that in abundance, which made that connection all the stronger. Things perhaps didn’t get off to the easiest of starts for him up here, but he never complained, never gave up. He continued to work as hard as he could to win the fans over, and his willingness to stick it out through the disappointing Dalglish/Gullit years was rewarded when Sir Bobby Robson took over and transformed the squad. He was a hugely important and invaluable member of the first team, displaying a lack of ego that seems remarkable even just a few years later. His contributions could so easily be forgotten when sharing a pitch with the likes of Shearer, Robert, Bellamy and Dyer, but he seemed more than happy to play the role of unsung hero. Almost everything about his play screamed quality: his passing and vision was brilliant, his workrate spot-on, and I’m almost certain that there’s no NUFC fan who saw him play who can’t picture him now rising higher than everyone on the pitch to win a header at set-pieces. In fact, my personal favourite memory of Gary Speed is the winner he scored against PSV Eindhoven in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals…a brilliant header from a Laurent Robert corner. It might have been over seven years ago now, but I can still picture it vividly in my mind from my viewpoint at the top of the Leazes End; he sent us absolutely mental.
I, and, I guess, many of our supporters, wanted him to see out his career with NUFC. He was simply one of those players that you were proud to have representing your club. Sadly it wasn’t to be, as he left for Bolton just a few months after that PSV goal. Still, after he left, you would never hear a bad word said of him from any NUFC fan. There was simply nothing about him that you could speak badly of. Obviously, I can’t speak for them, but I assume fans of his other clubs felt the exact same way…and I can only pray that he had some idea of just how loved he was, not just up here, but all over the country.
Rest in Peace.
