Gary Speed – A Life Gone Too Soon

I woke up yesterday morning to get my daily dose of the English Premiership news on the BBC when the newsreader announced that Gary Speed, manager of Wales had been found dead in his Chester home.

I vacillated between unqualified shock and unrestrained sorrow as I digested the news and realized how terrible his loss would be not only to the Welsh team where the young players all looked up to him, but also to the game where he once held the distinction of being the first man to have made over 500 appearances in the Premiership.  

Speed an ex Leeds, Everton, Newcastle and Bolton player was a true gentleman of the game. Fans all over Britain are in shock and have continued to pay tributes to a man many in the game described as ‘one of the nicest men’ to have played the game.

What the circumstances were that led to his death is still a mystery and would perhaps unfold in the coming days. It would be easy to be puritanical and even condemn him for taking his own life, and for leaving behind a grieving widow and two young kids, but as a fan of the game, it is not my place to make those kinds of judgments.

I rather choose to remember him as a player who gave nothing less than a hundred percent every time he got on the pitch to play the game. He had a sweet left foot that in my opinion was only second to Ryan Giggs’, but what impressed me the most about him, was the way he conducted himself outside the pitch.

He was indeed a model professional who had a kind word of advice for younger players but was never too old to take one. He played the game the way it should be played, with panache, flair and exciting abundance.

As manager of Wales, he has been able to transform an underperforming team into one with a potential for greater things in future.

Alan Shearer, Craig Bellamy, David Beckham, Phil and Gary Neville, the English Prime Minister and several other footballers have chosen to remember Speed as a man whom they were proud to have been acquainted with and hope that his memory will live forever in the annals of the English game.

It is when things like this happen that the fraternity of football comes together as one and we all realize that there are things that simply more important than football.

by Abiye Opuamah fromTalkEPL