Football fans can be right twats.
I mean, *everyone* can be right twats, but there’s a certain type of football fan who revels in it. It’s not so much to be vindictive, as to out-twat fellow twats. The prize is to make even your twattiest mate gasp and respond with ‘Fucking hell mate!’ Of course that means sick jokes. And jokes about death. It’s not always right – in fact it rarely is – but sometimes it is darkly, disturbingly funny. The surreptitious guffaw you’ll cowardly ‘like’ but not share for fear of outing yourself as an accessory.
When it was announced in November 2011 that Gary Speed had passed away, the reaction on social media was weird. There were no jokes. Or so remarkably few that they were negligible amongst the stream of condolence. Each of the usual twatty suspects, normally so primed and ready for macabre mirth, were gobsmacked into silence, or rare sincerity. ‘Fuck.’ was a common refrain, which may seem glib and inappropriately coarse, but spoke volumes in its uncensored brevity.
In the days and weeks that followed, there was a little more exposition. People were not only stunned by the death of someone so young and seemingly happy, but equally surprised and even unnerved by how much it personally affected them. With all due respect to Speed – who was a fine footballer and especially revered by fans of the teams he represented – many of those shaken up by his passing had no real affection or obvious connection to him whilst he was still alive.
So why was his death so broadly and profoundly felt? For fans of a certain age, his career had run parallel to their lives. He may not have been a central figure in their football experience, but he was always there in the background. A face at the edge of the photograph, or out-of-focus on overplayed tape. He was also a generally accepted ‘decent sort’. The kind of player who served each club and his beloved country with a grace and decorum that was impossible to dislike.
There was an everyman aspect to Speed – an aura of almost normal-ness that shouldn’t be seen as an slight. He was clearly better than us, but not by *too* much in each individual facet. He was better-looking, fitter, more skilful, could definitely leap higher, better mannered, and all-round more successful. But it all felt *almost* touchable. Like…he was the best version of what we could have been. When he died, it weirdly felt as if an unconsciously vicarious dream was over.
The fact that so many were able to relate to Speed in a manner that surprised even them had two consequences – there was an immediate flood of collective empathy, followed by a period of uneasy introspection. We’d seen him on Football Focus the weekend before, and he’d seemed absolutely fine. And then, just like that, he was gone. It drove home in the most brutal fashion possible that everything we take for granted in this life is so brittle and finite. There for the grace of God and all that.
It also caused many to reevaluate how they think about mental health. At the time, we were not to know certain aspects of Speed’s life and how they may have impacted on his untimely end, but it was clear he was troubled. And if we’re honest, we are all troubled to a certain extent. It may not be exacerbated by the crippling effects of depression and other mental health issues, but it is still there. Speed’s death was especially scary and affecting because, again, it was almost touchable.
Each anniversary of his passing brings back those same strange feelings. A prick of realisation here, a pang of dreaded mortality there. We clearly do not grieve like his friends and family do – nowhere near it – but there is a resonance. It’s hard to explain, and perhaps we shouldn’t even try to. But we can embrace it. It comes down to one simple thing: Gary Speed should still be with us, and he is not. We are still here, and that is something. Even if a better version is gone forever.
If you need to talk to someone, Samaritans‘ free helpline is available round the clock on 116123. Or you can contact them via email: jo@samaritans.org
