In many respects a University football beveraging game is hardly the most sincere of places to be. Yet we, who are present have one common factor to be a part of the event; our relentless passion for a sport that we both love and take part in. Usually full of rowdy boistrous comments alongside the occasional beverage or two I found myself last Wednesday staring across at twenty or so other players sitting in complete silence. It's ironic that one event can change so much at so many levels and yet marking the death of a loved football icon from the smallest levels upwards felt like the correct thing to do.
Gary Speed was such an icon. Spending various years seeing his named slapped across the Newcastle and then Bolton Wanderers teamsheets had become a given, for Speed himself was what most now professionals can only dream to be. He was there to play football, a true professional. Albeit nothing in comparrison to the silences held at various stadia across the United Kingdom over the weekend, our small but meanginful tribute to a man who devoted his life to our most precious sport is surely proof in itself of the reach he has as a player. For it is this unity in sport that makes the lowest moments seem recoverable. Football itself has been deprived of an insiprational leader, two boys have been deprived of a father and a wife is left grieving without her partner.
Deaths themselves come laced with irony, they unite those which would usually hate. Football is the most bipolar sport on the planet, scenes of hate echo across derby matches across the land and yet at a time of overall mourning fans come together to form the biggest family on the planet. It had come to my attention when reading about this tragedy that a certain Manchester United fan decided to visit Elland Road as tributes were being laid out around the Billy Bremner statue. In all honesty such a fan would never even speak of their support for the Red Devils around that part of Yorkshire, and yet this was different. Speed's death saw the fiercest of football tribalism put on hold and made way for all to truly remember a great. Walking up to the statue the man clasped in his hand the red shirt of Manchester United, turning to an official nearby he asked 'Can I lay this?' with the reply being 'Of course'. Worried of the reaction from the thirty plus Leeds United fans gathered around he then asked 'But will they say anything?' to which the official then answered 'Of course they won't' and led him to where the rest of the tributes were placed. He then laid out the shirt of Leeds United's most detested rivals in the middle of where various flowers, shirts and other messages were placed written on the back it read 'Gary Speed RIP'. In a sea of white and blue lay a crimson mark of respect, something to show a touching rememberance for everything a man did for the sport of football. This immense gesture from a rival shows Speed's true status in the sport. He had everything a fan loves about a player, desire, battle, pride in the shirt and the ablities to create and score.
Disbelief is the word on this matter for it was only a day before his untimley death that Speed was seen on Football Focus as a pundit, seemingly 'okay'. Where others have tried, though, I'm not here to delve into reasons behind his apparant suicide, this post is far from that; it is more a timely reminder of the way a sudden event can provide unity in a sport otherwise completely divided. Liverpool fans rememembering a fallem Everton hero as well as Sunderland fans paying respects to a fans favourite of their Tyneside rivals. Speed's death was a large shake to the world of football, in the way that a previously considered man who had it all could end it in such a fashion. It's incredible to consider that he was only forty-two years old, and even more incredible that he only retired from football shortly before. Speed's final interview had him say the sentence; ''Family is everything... football breaks your heart'', how fitting in this instance.
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