Steve Bruce

Early life

Bruce was born in Corbridge in Northumberland, the elder of two sons of Joe and Sheenagh Bruce. His father was local, and his mother had been born in Bangor in Northern Ireland. The family lived in Daisy Hill near Wallsend, and Bruce attended Benfield School.

Bruce, a boyhood fan of Newcastle United, claims to have sneaked into St James' Park without paying to watch the team play, saying "I have always been a Newcastle lad and when I was a kid, I crawled under the turnstiles to get in to try and save a bob or whatever it was. They were my team, I went to support them as a boy and being a Geordie it's in-bred, you follow the club still the same today." Like several other future professionals from the area, he played football for Wallsend Boys Club. He was also selected for the Newcastle Schools representative team, and at the age of 13 was among a group of players from the team selected to serve as ball boys at the 1974 Football League Cup Final at Wembley Stadium.

Having been turned down by several professional clubs, including Newcastle United, Sunderland, Derby County and Southport, Bruce was about to start work as an apprentice plumber at the Swan Hunter dockyard when he was offered a trial by Third Division club Gillingham, whose manager Gerry Summers had seen him playing for Wallsend in an international youth tournament. He travelled down to Kent with another player from the Wallsend club, Peter Beardsley, but although Gillingham signed Bruce as an apprentice, they turned Beardsley away. At the time Bruce was playing as a midfielder, but he was switched to the centre of defence by the head of Gillingham's youth scheme, Bill Collins, whom Bruce cites as the single biggest influence on his career.

Gillingham

Bruce spent the 1978–79 season in Gillingham's reserve team and, despite playing in defence, scored 18 goals to finish the season as top scorer. In January 1979, he was selected to represent the England Youth team, and he went on to gain eight caps, participating in the 1980 UEFA European Under-18 Championship. He came close to making his debut for the club's senior team in May 1979, but Summers decided at the last minute that, as Gillingham were chasing promotion from the Third Division, Bruce was not yet ready to handle the pressure of the occasion. He eventually made his senior debut in a Football League Cup tie against Luton Town on 11 August 1979, and made an immediate impact in the team, winning the club's Player of the Year award at the end of the 1979–80 season. He went on to make more than 200 appearances for the club, and was twice voted into the Professional Footballers' Association's Third Division Team of the Year.

Confident that he was being targeted by clubs from higher divisions, Bruce resolved not to sign a new contract with Gillingham when his existing deal expired at the end of the 1983–84 season. In an April 1983 match against Newport County, he attempted, in a moment of anger, to deliberately injure opposition player Tommy Tynan, but connected awkwardly and succeeded only in breaking his own leg, leaving him unable to play again for six months. He returned in time to play a key role in Gillingham achieving two draws against Everton in the FA Cup in 1984, attracting the attention once again of scouts from First Division clubs. Arthur Cox, manager of Bruce's beloved Newcastle United, expressed an interest in signing the player, but resigned from his job before any further action could be taken. Bruce eventually opted to sign for Norwich City in August 1984 for a fee variously reported as £125,000 or £135,000. In 2009, he was voted into Gillingham's Hall of Fame.

Norwich City

Bruce began the 1984–85 season by scoring an own goal in the first minute of his debut for Norwich against Liverpool, but went on to score the team's winning goal in the semi-final of the Football League Cup against local rivals Ipswich Town, and was named man of the match in Norwich's victory in the final. Bruce was voted Norwich City Player of the Year, but the team was relegated to the Second Division. Bruce played in every match as Norwich won promotion back to the top division at the first time of asking in the 1985–86 season, after which he was chosen to replace the departing Dave Watson as club captain. The following season he helped the club to its highest ever league finish of fifth position.

In 1987, he was chosen to captain the England B team in a match against the full national team of Malta, but it was to be his only appearance in an England shirt, and he has subsequently been described as one of the best defenders of his era never to be selected for the full England team. Bruce later stated, "I bumped into former England manager Bobby Robson in Benfica (sic). He came up to me and said 'I should have capped you'. It was nice to hear but it still didn't get me one .... I'll always be a little disappointed I didn't get one."

Bruce began to attract the attention of big-name clubs in late 1987, with Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Rangers all reported to be interested in signing him. Manchester United quickly emerged as the front runners for his signature, and Bruce publicly expressed his desire to sign for the club. The deal came close to collapsing when Norwich asked for a transfer fee of £900,000 after initially agreeing to accept £800,000, leading to Bruce refusing to play any further matches for the club, which he felt was jeopardising his dream move. On 17 December 1987, shortly before his 27th birthday, the deal was concluded and Bruce officially left Carrow Road, for a fee reported as £800,000 or £825,000. Norwich fans remembered his contribution, and in 2002 voted him into the Norwich City Hall of Fame.

Manchester United

Bruce made his Manchester United debut in a 2–1 win over Portsmouth on 19 December 1987, and played in 21 of United's remaining 22 league fixtures, helping the club to a top two place in the First Division for the first time since 1980. The team only finished in mid-table in the following season, prompting manager Alex Ferguson to bring in several new players, including Gary Pallister, who joined the club in August 1989 from Middlesbrough. His partnership with Bruce in the centre of defence was described in 2006 by the then-United captain, Gary Neville, as the best in the club's history. "Dolly and Daisy", as the pair were affectionately known, are described as "arguably the best" on the official Manchester United website. Bruce and Pallister were part of the team that won the 1990 FA Cup final against Crystal Palace in a replay.

Following the lifting of the five-year ban on English clubs from European competitions, which had been imposed after the Heysel Stadium disaster, United became England's first entrants into the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in the 1990–91 season. Bruce played regularly, and scored three goals, in the team's progress to the final against FC Barcelona. He came close to scoring the first goal, only for Mark Hughes to deflect the ball over the line and claim the goal, and United went on to win the game 2–1. This was a particularly high-scoring season for Bruce, who found the net 13 times in the First Division and 19 times in total in all competitions. He also played again at Wembley, in the Football League Cup final, in which United were defeated by Sheffield Wednesday of the Second Division.

Bruce missed several weeks of the 1991–92 season when he underwent an operation on a longstanding hernia problem, in which Leeds United, after a season-long tussle, beat Manchester United to the championship by four points. Bruce helped United win their first-ever League Cup in April 1992, captaining the team in the final in place of the injured Bryan Robson. Injuries continued to take their toll upon Robson during the 1992–93 season, leading to Bruce captaining the team in the majority of United's matches during the first season of the new Premier League. Bruce scored two late goals in a win over Sheffield Wednesday which proved decisive in United winning the inaugural Premier League title, the first time the club had won the championship of English football since 1967, and he and Robson received the trophy jointly after the home victory over Blackburn Rovers on 3 May.

At the height of his success with United, Bruce was contacted by Jack Charlton, manager of the