[HJCotW Spacemonkey]

Given the number of football fans on this forum, I'm surprised we've had nothing about this on here, but, as redundant as it may be, I'd just like to start a thread remembering a great player, and, from everything I've heard about him both in the past and especially over the last 24 hours, a great man.

I'm lifting this wholesale from a post I wrote on the f365 forum last night, as I honestly don't want to put too much more thought into this - I spent hours last night watching videos and listening to tributes, and have just finished listening to yesterday's 606 show, and I'm actually still upset about the whole thing. I appreciate how ridiculous it is, by the way, to actually be upset, as this loss doesn't actually affect my life in any tangible way, but it's a visceral thing.

Whatever the root causes of this suicide, and there is quite a bit of speculation around, there can be no doubt that football is a lesser sport for having lost one of the game's, and more particularly, the Premier League's true greats.



'I really got into football when I was about eight - pretty lucky for me, as I'm a Leeds lad, and that happened to coincide with our promotion to Division One. Gary Speed was, at that time, part of the greatest midfield four I've ever seen - the names of Speed, Batty, Strachan and McAllister will trip off the tongue of every Leeds fan that witnessed them for years to come.

Speed was my favourite player - he was young, skilful, exciting, and had the advantage of playing in the sort of eye-catching position that really captured a young lads imagination. As solid as Chris Fairclough may have been, he wasn't delivering the crosses onto Lee Chapman's head, or rifling home volleys from the edge of the box. Speed was cool.

I was gutted when he left us, but, like David Batty, I always expected that he'd come back to us when his career was winding down. Although that never happened, I was always genuinely pleased when things went well in his career - whether that was playing in the FA Cup Final and in Europe, helping Bolton become a minor force in the Premier League, getting his first management job with Sheffield Utd, and then turning Wales into a decent, and good to watch, international side, there was always that thought of, 'Oh, that's nice for him.'

I was in the car with Mrs Monkey today when the news came through. The Five Live anchor (can't remember who it was now) sounded shocked, and then we found out why. I just went, 'Gary Speed? Not Gary Speed.' I know I sounded like a child, but this has hit me worse than the death of any other celebritiy. It's genuinely put a dampener on the whole day, and I can't get it out of my head.

It's the first of my boyhood heroes to die, and, no matter how old you are, and how you know it has to come sometime, the reality of your heroes' mortality hits home.

RIP Speedo'

Marching on Together

[Gaz]

Not following football much when I was younger I didn't really know Gary Speed as a player outside of a Panini sticker. But from what's been said, and from the life he left behind, it's clear he was a very talented man who'd hidden his depression exceptionally well. So well, no one knew he needed help - or at the very least no one realised the seriousness of the situation until it was too late. Tremendously sad.

[Joinee Kate (SJJM)]

That day, he'd been talking about playing golf and all kinds of things he was about to do. Seems like there was no warning at all. He was a great footballer, and a great bloke too, by the sound of things. RIP.

[Siobhán]

Sad news indeed - RIP

[spannz15]

Its extremely sad news and I even found myself getting a bit chocked up myself after the footage of shay given etc getting emotional.
I hear at Forest v leeds tomorrow the Leeds fans are planning singing his name on the 11th minute for 11 minutes, and on the forest forums a lot of us forest fans are keen to join in as well. I have heard however there is a small (stupid idiot) proportion of forest fans planning on being idiots and shouting stupid things in revenge for the whole anti clough chants we often hear from again a small minority of leeds fans. I do hope everyone can just rise above it though and jus remember a great man.

[HJCotW Spacemonkey]

If ANY Forest fans are thinking of making a 'protest,' your whole club will be pilloried by the rest of the country, no matter how many people come out afterwards and talk about a 'small minority'.

I hope that leveller heads prevail in this situation.

MoT
HJCotW

[spannz15]

Hey I agree with you totally, I'm not condoning it at all but we aren't the only club to do so and IT WILL be a small minority most of us want to join in with the 11minute chant! It is unfair to brand us all like that I've never sung any chant of the srot to any opposition and neither have most of the gentlemen around me and I am disgusted to be associated with the few thugs who go to football because of this. Leeds were just as bad shouting don revie chants during the minute silence when Brian Clough died yet I don't paint all Leeds fans with this brush .I think that's what the idiot minority( it is literally like 2 people on the forum I go on and they have been threatened to have there heads kicked in if they start anything anyway) are trying to avenge which to me is stupid. In times like this a game of football is irrelevant no matter who the opposition is and what's went on in the past. I really hope both sets of fans can rise above it and have a good game off football.

[spannz15]

Yay both fans so far perfectly behaved with a block and Leeds fans singin Gary speed with other stands applauding happy Dannie and well behaved gentlemen

edit :behaved not babes lol, no im a phone spaz somtimes.

This post has been edited by spannz15: 30 November 2011 - 02:49 PM

[HJCotW Spacemonkey]

So glad that nothing untoward happened.

And, of course, with the result

MoT
HJCotW

[Gaz]

Gobsmacking. It's like they haven't noticed Leveson is happening:

http://www.anorak.co...-will-die.html/

[HJCotW Spacemonkey]

I know Gaz. That article drives me up the wall. Quite aside from anything else, it makes it look as if that's something that Gary Speed had said himself. I honestly don't think that the press will ever learn.

MoT
HJCotW