‘It’s for him’ – Bellamy drawn to Wales with Speed’s memory

Nations League: Wales v Turkey

Venue: Cardiff City Stadium Date: Friday, 6 September Kick-off: 19:45 BST

Coverage: Listen on BBC Radio Wales, Radio Cymru, BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra; live text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app

When you make your way to Cardiff City Stadium from the direction of the city centre, you are met with a mural of Gary Speed.

An image of the late Wales captain and manager adorns the side of a building overlooking a busy Canton crossroads; a black and white portrait on a bold red backdrop, accompanied by the words ‘Only one Gary Speed’, as sung by the country’s supporters at every home game.

Speed may only have managed Wales for 11 months but he left a profound legacy, the man many believe to have laid the foundation for the team’s rise from international football’s lowest reaches to the sparkling highs of its greatest generation.

Mention Speed’s name to any of his former team-mates, colleagues or players he coached and you will likely see them visibly moved, touched by their memories of a man they loved, who took his own life in 2011.

Craig Bellamy is one. Having played with and under Speed for Wales and shared a dressing room with him at club level, Bellamy has a deeper understanding than most about what made him special.

Now, as Wales head coach, Bellamy helps carry Speed’s memory as well as the hopes of a nation.

A few weeks after his appointment in July, Bellamy gave a presentation to the Football Association of Wales’ [FAW] councillors.

Before getting to the granular tactical detail and grand long-term vision he has for his role, Bellamy started with an image of the Speed mural in Canton.

“This is for him,” he told the room.

Bellamy not only saw what Speed had started but he had first-hand experience of it as a member of the team which hauled Wales from an all-time world ranking low of 117th to 45th, a springboard for unprecedented future success.

Speed did not live to see the fruits of that work, while Bellamy had retired by the time Wales ended their 58-year absence from major tournaments with qualification for back-to-back European Championships and a World Cup.

When Wales were on their euphoric ride to the Euro 2016 semi-finals, Bellamy was in the early stages of his coaching career and maintaining a low profile at odds with the headlines he often made as a player.

Having applied for the Wales job in 2018 when he missed out to Ryan Giggs, he worked as an assistant coach to his former Manchester City team-mate Vincent Kompany, first at Anderlecht in Belgium and then with Burnley.

A self-confessed football obsessive with a seemingly insatiable appetite for studying the game, Bellamy had served his apprenticeship by the time the Wales head coach role became vacant once again this summer.

When the FAW’s chief football officer Dave Adams and chief executive Noel Mooney interviewed Bellamy at Burnley’s training ground, he had prepared a presentation of remarkable detail.

As well as a thorough tactical analysis of Wales, the 45-year-old also impressed his employers-to-be with a comprehensive assessment of every player’s physical data.

Even more striking than his eye for detail, however, was Bellamy’s passion and his sense of a calling.

Bellamy was 15 when he left his home city of Cardiff to pursue his dream of making it as a professional player at Norwich City.

In his autobiography, he said moving away from his family and friends at that age “killed a part of me” and “taught me to isolate myself, to be single-minded… to be emotionally detached”.

A highly successful but nomadic career exacerbated that isolation, while self-doubt and introspection played on a troubled mind.

Speed’s death was one of the catalysts for Bellamy’s decision to seek help and, while mental health issues do not simply heal like a broken bone, the Wales head coach is calmer and more content these days.

You get that sense when you spend time in his company now. Bellamy is thoughtful and articulate – infectiously enthusiastic about a range of topics – though an intensity still burns inside.

That fire makes him compelling to listen to. You can imagine how inspiring that must be for Wales’ players, who have been awestruck in their admiration for the new head coach’s meticulous methods.

Bellamy contains multitudes. To watch him lead Wales on to the Cardiff City Stadium pitch for his first game against Turkey on Friday will be to watch a man, still in the fledgling stage of his coaching career, approach an end point of sorts.

Having spent most of his adult life outside Wales, Bellamy felt a gravitational urge to return.

To stand on the touchline when the anthem plays will be a moment of spiritual arrival and yet, knowing how football can drag you away from home, Bellamy cannot shake the sense that nothing lasts forever.

Even at this beginning of a new era, there is the sense of an ending.

“I didn’t see myself coming back to Wales but I always felt that pull back here,” Bellamy says.

“I’m grateful for that happening. I want to reconnect just for myself to gain peace.

“Because I do imagine this will be my last period in Wales, these next three or four years or whatever that period is, I try not to look too far.

“I want to soak up everything I can, get to see every part of it, get to enjoy every part of it as well.

“It sounds a bit strange but I see it that way because, good or bad, football will probably take me out of here then.”