Gary Speed RIP.
A week on, I’m still in shock from the sudden death of Gary Speed.
For anyone who doesn’t know who he was, he was the popular manager of the Welsh national football [soccer] team. Wales is a country with only a few national institutions, he was therefore one of the most high profile people in the land, and had been a part of public life since his late teens.
To put it into perspective, at least that of a football fan, it’s like losing a Pope or a president or a top sports star or something, but not from an illness or old age but from a suspected suicide at the height of their powers. It’s deeply shocking and mysterious. And there has been unprecedented, collective grief in Wales and beyond.
I’ve been watching him play since the early nineties when he had hair like a raver and seemed to represent the spirit of my generation. And I had the privilege of watching his last game as Wales manager at Cardiff City Stadium on November 12th.
Wales beat Norway 4-1 – and in the first 20 minutes in particular they played some truly fancy, confident football unlike any Wales side I’d ever witnessed. (though the 2002/3 team that Speed captained were also pretty incredible).
During the last few weeks, in a frenzy of over-confidence I had even been trying to book accomodation for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, as Speed’s Wales seemed (and still do) to have everything needed to qualify.
Obviously there is no shame in failure. People, especially people from small countries like the Welsh must be able to accept that we can’t always qualify for various scenarios. But….
Gary Speed allowed us to dream.
As a player he was extremely determined and resilient.As a manager he built an inspiring and talented team of progressively-minded people around him, such as assistant manager Raymond Verheijen that helped him stamp these attributes on his team as a whole.
These are attributes that this team will now never forget. They will have them emotionally ingrained on their psyches – I imagine for the rest of their lives.
It’s a tall order but, hopefully the players and his backroom staff and, by extention, the Welsh fans and football fans in general can carry his sense of adventure forward.
We can all take inspiration from his belief that we could achieve anything, and achieve it in the most beautiful way. Regardless of how impossible and distant these things sometimes seem.
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