76 GARY SPEED LEEDS, EVERTON, NEWCASTLE, BOLTON
Just before Gary Speed finally retired aged 40, having made almost 850 appearances in English football, the midfielder decided he needed another challenge. He was about to join the Sheffield United coaching staff, but that wasn’t enough for the all-action Welshman. So, he took up long-distance running, and in April 2010 entered the London Marathon to raise funds for the Sir Bobby Robson and John Hartson Foundations.
I spent a day with Gary at the Blades’ training ground in the build-up to the big race, and couldn’t understand how someone who claimed he wasn’t fit enough to play football should put himself through 26 miles of torture.
“It’s a different kind of fitness,” he said. “I don’t have the power to play at a decent level any more, but if you’re plodding in a marathon, then I’ll be able to plod all day.”
Plodding? Well, he plodded his way to smash his pre-race target of beating the four-hour mark.
But that was typical Speed, the man blessed with model good looks who could seemingly turn his hand to anything. He mastered the guitar as a young player and became the life and soul at every party.
“YOUNGSTERS WERE TOLD, ‘IF YOU WANT A ROLE MODEL, GARY SPEED’S YOUR MAN’”
Those handsome features got me into a spot of bother with the midfielder within days of him joining Sir Bobby’s Newcastle from Everton. I’d read that Speed had scooped ‘Heartthrob of the Year’ in a teenage girls’ magazine, and wrote that he’d come to St James’ Park looking to add to this latest honour. “Thanks, mate,” he said when we met. “Can you imagine the bloody stick I’ve taken for that?”
It was no
