John Hartson: Football has lost a true legend, I have lost a true friend

I have never lost anyone that close to me and I’m not afraid to admit that it has hit me badly.

There are a lot of people who become legends once they pass away. Well Gary was a legend and worthy of everything that has been said of him He was a fantastic friend to me and there is no-one I know who has anything but good things to say about him. The tributes from Robbie Savage, Craig Bellamy, Mark Hughes, Ian Rush – the list is endless – everybody has been praising him because he is so worthy of our praise.

I feel so much for his boys, Edward and Thomas, and his wife Louise. I’ve spoken to his father, Roger, and he wants to stay strong for Gary. We all want to stay strong for Gary.

Last Sunday I was due to be working at The Liberty Stadium for BBC 5Live with Swansea playing Aston Villa. I live about three miles from there and I was taking my boy. I was looking forward to it too – seeing Alex McLeish not to mention my old Celtic team-mate Stiliyan Petrov.

I was buzzing when I arrived about ten to 12. I walked into the press room and I saw Bobby Gould. He had this look on his face. He grabbed me by the arm and I could see he had gone pale.

Bobby was wearing a puffa jacket and when he told me that Gary was dead, I just buried my head in his shoulder. Bobby got me out of the room but I was in floods of tears in front of my boy.

I phoned a friend and asked him to come down so he could watch the match with my eight-year-old son – I didn’t want to disappoint him – and I drove home. I was back home by 12.15pm and I switched off my phone because I knew what would happen.

When I switched my phone on again there were 26 voice messages and 30 text messages. All about Gary. That was when I decided to do my tributes – to S4C, on Al Jazeera.

Gary was my friend, my captain, my leader. He was fantastic as a person. On Wednesday I was asked to go on ITV for the Braga v Birmingham match. Steve McClaren was there and the other booked guest had been Gary.

I admit it, I was tearful. I was sitting in the seat that had been meant for Gary. The production team were great. I know that if it had been the other way round, I would have wanted Gary to be sitting there.

We were close. I can’t remember ever having a cross word with him even though I played against him lots of times when I was at Arsenal, Wimbledon and West Ham. He ran the London Marathon for the John Hartson Foundation. In September he played in my charity game at Derby County. It was 8 September, his birthday. How many people would have done that, a few days after he was in charge of Wales against England at Wembley?

He wanted to play in my game and nothing was going to stop him. I made him play 90 minutes too and he kept going. He was in the gym every day and he was really fit but I didn’t expect anything less.

There’s the job he did as Wales manager too. Now is not the time to talk about who will replace him. Now is a time to reflect.

The Football Association of Wales will have to move on but not right now. Now we have to remember Gary Speed. My very good friend. A special man. I will miss him.