Hearing about the loss of Beardy was devastating news and something that we could never have imagined.
He held a special place in all of our hearts and was different to any other manager I’ve worked under.
He treated us like family and we treated him like family. I’ve known him for many years and he’s pretty much the reason why I am where I am today.
He was the reason I went to West Ham and the reason why I came to Liverpool, so he’s pretty much carved out my whole career. You only needed one or two conversations with the man and he had you, completely invested and trusting of what he said.
His character and warmth was the best part of who he was, and you knew when you signed for him he was always going to look after you.
Football aside, he was always asking: ‘How’s your family? How are your dogs? You watch the Millwall game?’ He was always asking about those kinds of things and he was just so much more to people than a football manager usually is.
He was such a caring and lovable man and I can’t express how much my thoughts are with Debbie, Harry, Ellie and the rest of the family at this incredibly difficult time.
It’s rare for a football manager to be so loved by so many players. He coached hundreds of players but had interactions with many more and he just had this way of drawing people to him.
We saw how competitive he was on the sidelines, so loud, rowdy and shouting your ears off one minute but then joking with you about it 20 minutes later.