John Hartson reveals what Wales skipper Ashley Williams tells Wales team-mates before every game at Euro 2016
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WHEN Ash Williams pulls the Wales team together for their huddle before every match there are four words he says to them.
‘Do it for Speedo.’
Craig Bellamy with Edward and Thomas Speed ahead of memorial match
For 18 months they were a group of players mourning the tragic death of their hero and mentor.
Now his memory is inspiring them.
Gary Speed would have loved this.
He’ll be up in heaven now, looking down at the scenes of sheer joy and wishing he was part of it.
But he should know that he is.
This success we’re having now, this incredible and unbelievable success in France, is as much down to him as anyone.
People talk about the team spirit in our group, well, that’s where it comes from.
Manager Chris Coleman does a magnificent job. I was part of his backroom staff for long enough to have seen how he works. He’s different class.
Wales boss Coleman built on what friend Speed began
But he’ll know how massive a factor Speedo still is with this close-knit group of boys.
It hit them hard when he took his own life. It hit us all hard.
To this day I still cannot get my head around it.
He was one of my mates but I idolised the man, just as the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Gareth Bale, Joe Ledley and Joe Allen did too.
For a year and a half they struggled to get it together. They were HIS golden generation and it was almost like they didn’t have the energy to go on without him.
The gaffer has now somehow managed to get them past that.
But their pain at their loss is now fuelling their desire to win.
There’s no doubt about it. I know it is.
They were united so deeply in grief.
Swansea star Williams headed Wales level against Belgium
But I know Gary’s family — like his dad Roger and teenage sons Edward and Tommy — will be hugely proud of the way this team is playing now in Gary’s memory.
It’s truly incredible just how brilliant they’re going.
I was in Lille on Friday night and I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it in all my life.
You watch them and think ‘what the hell is going on?’
Goal hero Hal Robson-Kanu doesn’t even have a club, for crying out loud.
It’s just beyond everyone’s wildest dreams, getting to the semi-finals but then we played Belgium off the park.
Sure there were times when we had to ride our luck — but that happens in every single match.
The truth is that the Belgians didn’t know what had hit them by the time the game ended.
Our captain was running around all night like he was still feeling pain in his shoulder but he still careered into one crunching tackle after another and led by example as ever.
The Wales squad are extremely close having played together for years
Ramsey ran the game and it was a travesty that he picked up a booking which rules him out of the next game.
But Belgium were completely and utterly awestruck. Just like we all were. I was working for the BBC and after the game Mark Chapman said I sounded quite emotional.
There was one very good reason for that. I bloody was.
Afterwards I was in the media centre sitting with a few of the lads I used to play with and we were all the same.
Dean Saunders said when the game finished and he was asked to describe what it all meant he was lost for words. He literally couldn’t speak.
And let me tell you that Deano usually talks so much he could send a glass eye to sleep.
Fact is this is the greatest Wales team ever.
The 1958 World Cup side has been down there in Welsh history as the best we’ve ever had. Not anymore.
I don’t mean that as any disrespect to the men who reached the quarter-finals in Sweden losing to Brazil. That was some achievement.
But this is better. It has to be.
We’re potentially 180 minutes away from winning this tournament which is truly phenomenal.
And it’ll take a brave man to write these lads off. Not when it’s greatness that’s inspiring them.
