David Prentice shares his memories of Gary Speed the man and remembers the midfielder's all-too-brief time as an Everton FC player

HOW do you make sense of such a horrible, bleak situation?

You can’t.

All I can do is offer a little insight into the lovely, charming and engaging Gary Speed that I knew – and pay tribute to a person I respected enormously.

I didn’t know Speedo very well – he was only at Everton FC for barely two years.

But I knew him well enough – and always enjoyed spending time in his company.

The mid-90s was an era when I visited Everton’s training ground at Bellefield at least once, sometimes twice, every day, travelled on team coaches pre-season and ghost wrote the captain’s column for the matchday programme.

As a result I got to know Speedo better than many of his team-mates and I was aware of his frustrations when he controversially left the club in 1998.

Some Everton FC supporters treated him badly when he moved to Newcastle – and that always upset me.

At the time he gave me a brief statement to use.

He explained: “You know why I’m leaving, but I can’t explain myself publicly because it would damage the good name of Everton Football Club and I’m not prepared to do that.”

I’m not prepared to betray that confidence now, either.

But Speed never went back on his word, never explained why he felt he had to leave the club he supported as child and never tried to ease the boos he received on his returns by telling his story – because he genuinely did not want to damage Everton Football Club.

The notion of Gary Speed ever damaging Everton FC is absurd.