GARY SPEED’S PARENTS TELL OF TORMENT IN NEW BOOK
Seven years on, the questions still linger about why football star Gary Speed took his own life. In the new book Gary Speed Unspoken: The Family’s Untold Story – serialised exclusively in the Western Mail and Wales Online this week – his widow Louise has
■ Carol: I know he is our lad but since he has gone we have never heard a bad word said against him. We’ve got lovely memories but no answers. All the time your mind thinks about why.
■ Roger: We haven’t got a clue.
■ Carol: If you don’t know the reason it happened you are never at peace. We didn’t know there was anything wrong with Gary. You never recover from anything like this. Never. It’s the biggest shock anyone could ever experience.
■ Roger: At such an early age, deary me.
■ Carol: People on the outside looking in would think he had everything going for him. But something was troubling him.
■ Roger: There’s been some brilliant people trying to help us. Chris Coleman, for instance, has been good whenever I’ve met him.
■ Carol: It doesn’t get any easier. You can live with it more if, say, it was a car accident. Or if you knew he was ill, or could see he was ill, but we didn’t know anything. One minute he was here and the next he was gone. One thing it’s done, I hope, is that it has helped open the doors for people to talk about any mental issues. All we can think is that Gary was suffering from depression, although you’d never have known. He would put a smile on his face all the time. But that’s a man thing, isn’t it?
■ Roger: I just hope people can learn from our experience.
■ Carol: I hardly watch football anymore.
■ Roger: football.
■ Carol: It’s too much for me if I watch it. I can still see him there playing. So I can’t do it, no. I can’t watch it. No, Carol won’t watch
■ Kevin Ratcliffe – Grew up on the same street as Gary, and played alongside him for Wales: I was in the press room to cover Swansea’s Premier League game with Aston Villa. Suddenly, someone wanted a word. “What’s the problem?” I asked. Back came the reply that Gary Speed had committed suicide. I fell back against the wall and felt absolutely s***. All kinds of emotions went through my head. Why Gary? What has happened? What the hell has gone on I’d known him since he was a young kid – since he was my paper boy. Why hadn’t he asked to have a word with me? But as a professional footballer you often keep many things to yourself. As a manager, which he was, everyone comes to you with their problems. You deal with them. Maybe he got to a point where he couldn’t deal with his own problems.
■ Howard Wilkinson – managed Gary at Leeds, where they won the First Division title in 1992: I got that dreadful phone call from Gordon Strachan. He said: “Gary’s died?” “Gary who?” I replied. “Gary,” said Strach. “Speedo.” I was surprised, shocked, stunned – it was hard, almost impossible, to take in. Career-wise, he had everything in front of him. It’s all hard to understand but something that Vinnie Jones once told me has stayed with me and is important when you consider what happened to Gary. I was expressing my disbelief, how can anybody do that? Vinnie then disclosed he had once been on the verge of doing the same thing. An inexplicable dark moment he did not see coming.
■ Mickey Thomas – played for Leeds while Gary was breaking through, and has struggled with his own demons: I received a phone call early on the Sunday morning from Robbie Savage. He told me what had happened – I told him not to be so stupid and put down the phone. An hour or so later, there it was on the TV – Gary was dead. I just couldn’t believe it. I think I went into shock.He was such a great bloke. After I hit hard times financially later in life, if he saw me he would always ask if I was all right for money. One day, I went to his house when he was with Newcastle United and he asked me if I wanted any boots. It was up to me what I did with them, maybe sell them to make a few quid to ease the debts. I ended up coming out of his garage with around 30 pairs. That’s how generous he was. I will never forget his kindness.
■ Joe Royle – FA Cupwinning Everton manager signed Gary, a boyhood Blue, in 1996: I was driving to Oldham on family business when one of my sons rang me asking if I’d heard that Gary Speed had died and it was suspected suicide. Without one ounce of exaggeration, I nearly veered off the motorway. Then the news started coming out about the tragedy, although it was still very hard to comprehend – a beautiful young man, a certainty sometime in the future to manage a Premier League club, probably Everton. The whole thing is a mystery. A total mystery. I can’t believe how he could have left two boys who he adored behind in the manner he did.