Gary Speed’s widow Louise’s second husband dies aged 53

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Quinton Bird, a property developer, was diagnosed with aggressive brain tumour six months after his wedding to Louise.

Louise Speed, the widow of late Welsh football manager Gary Speed , has tragically lost her second husband at the age of 53 after a battle with brain cancer. Louise, who lost Leeds United, Newcastle United and Everton legend Gary in 2011, married Quinton Bird in December 2021 after working as his business partner running a new build and renovation company in Cheshire.

Bird, a property developer, was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour six months after the wedding to Louise, although he had been previously diagnosed with a much more treatable tumour, more than two years earlier. His death came just over a decade after the death of the football legend Speed.

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Speed, who made appearances 248 times for Leeds United between 1998 and 1996, was discovered dead in his garage by his wife, Louise. He may have died accidentally, according to a coroner’s narrative verdict, which stated that there was insufficient evidence to establish his intention to take his own life.

Louise’s relationship with Quinton became public after she told a national newspaper in an exclusive interview that she had found happiness and joy with a new partner. Louise stated she had built up a layer of armour after the sudden death of her childhood sweetheart Gary in 2011.

She had said: "It was like being in the worst nightmare possible. There were no answers and no Gary walking through the door again. Nothing was ever going to be right again. I was trudging through life, just functioning. If I could have been anybody else apart from me, for a long time, I would have happily taken it.

"But we are 10 years on now. It’s a cliché but time is a healer even if it takes years. I have learned that life can be good again, and can be great again.” On her new relationship, she said: “I don’t think you move on from something like this as the same person. have become wiser. I am probably more confident than I was.

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“But I tend to wear a body of armour around me the whole time, if I am honest — so that I cannot be hurt again. I know as we go through life different things hit us and I actually think that I deal with things OK now. Nothing fazes me or scares me anymore.”

In the wake of Bird’s death, his daughter from his previous marriage, set up a fundraising page in memory of her father and his fight against cancer by completing a long trek in the Lake District,  and the money will be donated to the Brain Tumour Research charity. So far, they have raised a little over £4,000 of the £5,300 target.

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