Speed's tragic death a mystery

Mixed in with public sadness over a former sport star's suicide is an unspoken twinge of judgment. It's easy to quietly cast someone like Gary Speed as ungrateful for all his blessings, to accuse him of "letting the side down", especially since his lot appeared to lack any hardships.

If so many ordinary people with crappy lives can soldier on with a shrug, why couldn't he?

This impulse to judge is misguided, partly because suicide is not inherently cowardly, as Western religion and social taboo would have us believe. It's also wrong, because clinical depression is viciously democratic. It doesn't bow to fame, money or achievement.

By all accounts, Speed, who hanged himself at the weekend, had nothing to be sad about. He was healthy, wealthy and hugely respected, and shared his life with a wife and two children.

During his 22-year playing career (he racked up 840 appearances), Speed more than fulfilled his unexceptional store of talent. Only Ryan Giggs and David James have compiled more Premier League outings. He relentlessly applied the traditional British football virtues of effort, tenacity and late goal-scoring runs. Because he won the first division title with Leeds United in 1992, (and nothing thereafter) his name came to evoke the egalitarian good old days when middleweight sides could rise up and rule England.

After retiring at 40 last year, Speed spent three unsuccessful months managing Sheffield United. But after that stumble, he quickly rehabilitated his managerial reputation in command of a vibrant young Wales, who narrowly lost to England and scored accomplished victories over Switzerland, Bulgaria and Montenegro in their Euro 2012 qualifying group.

A fortnight ago, Speed's Wales clobbered Norway 4-1, and appeared capable of reaching the 2014 World Cup finals - a feat that would be the first Welsh qualification since 1958. Speed recently admitted to the press he would never have broken into the current Dragons midfield as a player, with Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey being such deft operators in his old positions of left wing and attacking midfield. But maybe there was too much time to think between international fixtures, and too few people to talk with about the resulting emptiness. More than half of Speed's life - and all of his adult life - had been structured by the affirming, thrilling rhythm of training and playing. If the loss of his calling at least partly motivated his terrible decision, he wouldn't be the first former sportsman to have been dangerously unmoored by the inertia and loneliness of life after professional competition. Of course, the motive might have been something else.

Traditionally, cricketers have been more likely to take their own lives than footballers. According to the late Peter Roebuck, this is because cricket attracts more sensitive types and then tests their hearts and minds more cruelly.

But while professional football is more forgiving of human error than cricket, it might also be less accepting of human sadness. Elite footballers are supposed to be tough and happy, but few actually are. It's possible Speed feared revealing his despair to others more than he feared ending his life.