Bolton Match Report - Gary Speed Tribute

As the dust settled on a much needed and satisfying result away from home to Bolton Wanderers on Saturday and how we should have maybe done this and could have done that to win by a few more. The futility of it all was brought shudderingly to the fore by the seemingly nonsensical news that the Wales Manager, ex Everton Captain and more than anything else fellow Evertonian Gary Speed had been found hanged at his home in Cheshire. Leaving a wife and two kids to mourn his loss. Sickening.

   

Credit where it is due to under pressure Owen Coyle. He could have pissed and moaned to the media about the game changing David Wheater sending off. It was touch and go, you can see why he went and its about time one of these went for rather than against us, but its just a bit shite that an unintentional mis-timed tackled can have such an impact on the outcome of a game. To summarise; we probably would have struggled had he stayed on the pitch. Martin Atkinson take note.

     

The Toffees looked to be making hard work of it on Saturday as they laboured to the break at nil nil. The murmurings where about lack of fire-power up front and dodgy team selections. These moans where put almost immediately to bed when Marouanne Fellaini latched on to a delightful Bilyaletdinov pass and slotted one home straight after the break. Apostolis Vellios has made it harder again for his manager to continue ignoring him for a starting berth by webbing a Tim Cahill knock back in from close range. The Aussie didnt stop working all afternoon and didnt get his long awaited goal, but his real contribution was to put the result beyond doubt for his side by not giving up on the deep Baines cross to the back post and expertly putting it back in the danger zone for the Greek lad to do the rest. Textbook. Pass me the Oxygen, were back up to eighth.



Sometimes in Sport or in life an event shocks you to your very core. Waking up in a slight Sunday morning hangover induced haze with family and hearing the disbelieving news of Gary Speeds suicide through a mixture of Facebook, Twitter and Sky Sports is one of them. It is truly, truly upsetting a hard to get your head around. A seemingly stoic professional, a lad who had achieved so much in his playing career and looked to be going on to great things in his managerial career through firstly Sheffield United and then Wales had taken his own life. What went wrong?

    

It is well documented that Gary Speed was a blue, brought up in North Wales not too far away from Chester. A picturesque little place in the country where our club draws in a sizeable chunk of local support. He won the league as a bright young thing at Leeds, then signed for his boyhood club who he went on to captain. Derby goals and hatricks he was an individual who achieved dreams. A widely respected, healthy, good looking, popular family man. He literally had it all.



The circumstances around his all too brief Everton career coming to an end are quite frankly, totally fucking irrelevant just now. Who cares what songs were sung and whether he swigged out of Kendalls lucozade bottle and saw fit to call time on things. Its all just bollocks, its only footy, its certainly not more important than life or death. Two little lads have lost their Dad and a woman has lost her loving husband. It is a clear measure of the man that whatever did make him leave the club he loved and captained will probably now never ever come to light and all the better for it. That was the type of individual he was and he exuded it whenever you saw or heard him speak. A truly great man. Never has 'Nil Satis Nisi Optimum' been more relevant for the way a fella lived his life. He never gave anything other than his best and the world is a darker place without him.

God Bless Gary Speed, thanks for the memories mate, you will be sorely missed. x