GARY Speed went on to enjoy four successful years at Bolton Wanderers, but he still wishes he had not left Newcastle United when he did.
At 34, Speed had been told he was no longer guaranteed to start in a Newcastle side which had finished the previous season in fifth place in the Premier League and was looking to push again for Champions League qualification under Sir Bobby Robson.
A few weeks later in the summer of 2004, with Newcastle on a pre-season tour of the Far East, Bolton had a bid of just £750,000 accepted and Speed was off. He said: “I shouldn’t have left when I did. Bobby didn’t want me to go, but the club accepted an offer, I wasn’t going to be playing every week so I made a decision to go to Bolton.
“I enjoyed my time there, but with hindsight I could have stayed and I should have done, the door wasn’t closed on me. I was 34, I still wanted to play, but I didn’t like the idea of not being first choice anymore. It was a mistake, but we all make them. It opened up another chapter in my career. I was fortunate enough to carry on playing until I was 38, so the move to Bolton prolonged my career.”
Speed, though, admits he left a piece of his heart on Tyneside and there is no doubt he would love to return as manager one day. He said: “I loved my time up there, it is a fantastic place to live and a fantastic place to play football. It was definitely the most enjoyable period of my career, playing in the Champions League. We were one of the top four or five sides in the country at that time and that is where Newcastle should be in my opinion.
“It may not have seemed like it at the time, but I think relegation might be the best thing that could have happened to them. It’s going to take some time, but they seem to be in a good shape financially and gradually they are building themselves back into the club they should be.
“I think relegation has helped manage expectations a bit and it has allowed the club to change tact a little. It isn’t going to happen overnight, but I think Newcastle are still one of the top six clubs in the country and I’d love to see them get back into the sort of shape they were in when I was there.”
Speed has played for two former Newcastle managers in Robson and Sam Allardyce, but while he has an enormous amount of respect for the latter he was in awe of English football’s favourite knight. He explained: “Bobby was fantastic, there are so many memories. He pops into my head a lot, things he said, things he did. I’m my own man, you have to be as a manager, but obviously there are things I picked up. It’s the same with Sam Allardyce at Bolton.
“Bobby was just a fantastic man manager, he knew how to get the best out of his players. In his first game we won 8-0 against Sheffield Wednesday, that wasn’t tactics, or coaching, that was purely down to the manager and his ability to get players to run through brick walls for him.”
