This is just unbelievable: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/wales/8918625/Wales-manager-Gary-Speed-dies-aged-42-in-apparent-suicide.html The current Wales football manager apparently took his own life last night, at the age of 42. I was watching him on the BBC's 'Football Focus' program only yesterday, talking about his hopes for the future with the Welsh team. The presenter of that was on the news earlier, saying that he has seemed absolutely normal, happy, and talking away happily about the future, playing golf next week, and so on. He also had a reputation as a level headed person, great professional with a great attitude, really supportive to his team mates and the younger players coming through, and just a 'normal' person who happended to be a football player - no star ego or anything, and no scandalous private life. Just totally unexpected and unbelievable - there was no indication of anything wrong at all, according to people who have spoken to him in the last few days, and no indication that he was the sort of person likely to do something like that, according to those who knew him well. Just totally shocked. He was a great professional, talented football player, and a great servant to Wales (and the clubs he played for) - RIP Gary Speed.
condolences to that hero in wales for speculation many american sports owners commit suicides when they make illegal bets because they fear losing their jobs and the embarassment as well as prison time this not sound like the case there but it is something to ponder
Anything is possible at this point, of course, but I just can't see it - he just doesn't seem like the type at all.
Cenydd, tragic. I don't suppose we will know why. We were watching football commentary a couple of weeks before. I didn't really know Gary Speed and don't like football, but made a comment about him being a really good looking man who reminded me of Alan Hansen. I watched a bit more and asked my husband what the hell was wrong with him and why he looked so really miserable and unhappy and was there something wrong with him. I forgot about it. My husband reminded me after Gary Speed passed. Gary Speed's face and the expression in his eyes resembled a man I worked with over a period of 5 years. That man committed suicide 3 years ago. No one knew why, he spoke to his best friend the night before and arranged a weekend away. After he died, his wife wanted to talk to people who worked with him to try to find out if it was work related. The guy was really successful at work, though I'd say he was promoted beyond his ability and was never comfortable interacting with people and that was a key part of his work. He hated meetings and told me he had to use strategy to get through them, like repeating prepared jokes and stories...it wasn't ever natural for him. I was talking to that guy a week before he died. We all were. We met at the funeral of another colleague. The only thing I noticed odd, while people were talking to him I could see in his eyes he was running something else over in his head, almost like he was having a private conversation. His wife had no idea why he did it. She also found him, as Gary Speed's wife did.
It's very sad when things like that happen. A friend of my ex-wife committed suicide some years ago, and there was nothing to indicate it when we'd seen her a few weeks before. It's easy to say (as some do) that it's a selfish act, and that nobody in their right mind would do such a thing to their family, but someone in that situation isn't in their right mind - that's the point. I can't imagine what it would be like to even consider doing something like that to the ones I love, nor do ever I want to. There have been some rumours, the main one being that a tabloid was going to 'out' him as being gay. It's appauling in this day and age that that would even be an issue, if that was the case, but the fact that there are no footballers at all prepared to admit to being gay (though of course some of them actually are) speaks volumes for the attitude among some in the game. We will probably never know the truth, but if those rumours are true I hope that the journalists responsible are painfully aware of the result of their gutter standards for the rest of their days, and I hope too that something good can come out of it in terms of modernising some of the disgusting attitudes of bigotry held by some in the football world.
Sorry I didn't see this thread sooner. As I haven't had the ability to give my thoughts on Gary Speed to anyone who knew what I was talking about. RIP Gary Speed, Legend. I'll always remember him as one of the solid figures in the football I watched growing up, be it at Bolton, Leeds or for Wales.... By all accounts he was a great human being and it was a shock to see him go like that. Let it be a lesson to us all about how emotions can take control and the power of them, even if they're temporary. I watched him on the BBC the day before he killed himself, I still can't believe the person I saw on the TV did that a day later. I like to consider myself a good judge of character (I can usually tell what's gonna happen in a reality tv show before it occurs) but I saw absolutely no evidence of what was brewing underneath his exterior. My condolances to his family, Wales, and his friends. I sat in my back yard the day it happened and had a quiet moment of reflection of my own demons and how I should approach them in the future. He truely had an impact on my life with his passing.
