A year ago, football lost one of its most respected players of recent generations in such tragic circumstances.
Most of us will remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news about the death of Gary Speed.
I remember where I was – working on the important University dissertation in final year, when I took a break to check the latest sporting headlines.
I remember seeing the BBC Sport breaking news ticker saying ‘The Welsh Football Association have confirmed the death of team manager Gary Speed.’
My first thought was ‘surely not, it can't be true’ but as the tributes started pouring in on the various news channels and on social media through Facebook and Twitter, the shock and sadness I felt was palpable.
Shock swept through the game
The day’s Premier League matches involving Swansea and Aston Villa and Liverpool’s home clash with Manchester City paled into total insignificance.
This was a loss that was mourned by everyone. Speed was one of the good guys in football and to be honest, there isn’t many more around in today’s game.
As the shock swept through football, the sport came together – united in grief for his family and his close friends.
A year on and although time flies by, the pain will never heal for his loved ones.
Speed was doing remarkable things with the Welsh national team, as they rose rapidly up the FIFA world rankings.
They had just destroyed Norway in a friendly in Cardiff, beaten the likes of Montenegro and Bulgaria in Euro 2012 qualification and deserved something from the narrow loss at Wembley to England.
Speed (pictured) was always a dignified soul; he never said a bad word about anybody. The way he left Everton in February 1998 was believed to be acrimonious.
However he never showed his public reasons for leaving his boyhood club to join Newcastle, because he didn’t want to give Everton a bad name.
Represented his clubs with pride and dignity
That shows his class as a personality and as an individual.
He won the last Football League championship before the formation of the Premier League at Leeds United.
Some forget that powerful midfield of Gordon Strachan, Gary McAllister and David Batty. Speed was fully part of a combination of players that gelled successfully under Howard Wilkinson.
He was an integral part of Newcastle’s success at the beginning of the millennium under another of football’s sadly missed characters Sir Bobby Robson.
Alan Shearer and Craig Bellamy might have scored the goals but the midfield on Tyneside was made stronger by Speed’s contribution to the attacking football dynamic at St James’ Park.
He was a midfield goalscorer. Normally, he would get into double figures every season.
He created many special moments and always represented his clubs, latterly Bolton Wanderers and Sheffield United with pride and dignity.
In a Welsh international side that suffered some humiliating defeats in the mid-1990s, including to the likes of Moldova and Georgia – Speed was one of those players that you couldn’t question gave his all.
Always passionate about the game
He wore his country’s shirt with pride and passion and in management, was promising great things. With him, many believed the Welsh might end their drought of not appearing at major tournament finals.
It is a loss that the national team has never really recovered from. Despite the best efforts of Chris Coleman, it looks highly unlikely that Wales will reach Brazil 2014.
24 hours before his untimely death, Speed appeared alongside McAllister on the BBC lunchtime show Football Focus.
He seemed his normal self, talking with passion about the game he loved. There was no indication of what was about to happen.
He was at Old Trafford later that day to watch Newcastle get an excellent point at Manchester United, enjoying a catch-up with former Magpies team-mate Shearer.
His death rocked the game of football, as highlighted by the tributes that poured in across the world.
The circumstances around his death will probably remain a mystery. There is plenty of activity in the football world at present, with lots of action and some unsavoury controversy which at times has dogged the game in the past year.
I hope I can speak for many that Gary Speed is profoundly missed by everyone. His legacy will remain one year on and the world of football is a poorer place without him.
By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88
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