Bryan Gunn

Bryan James Gunn (born 22 December 1963) is a Scottish former professional goalkeeper and football manager.

Gunn was born on 22 December 1963 in Thurso, Scotland, "twenty miles from John o'Groats".

Gunn attended secondary school at Invergordon Academy from 1975 to 1980, and gained O Grades in a variety of subjects, including English, maths, history and chemistry.

He failed his French exam after taking it while "on the road" with Scotland under-15s.

At the age of 13, he was invited to play for the under-15 Invergordon F.C. team by one of his school teachers, who managed the team.

The team was beaten 9–0 in Gunn's debut, but his subsequent performances attracted the attention of national selectors, and he joined the Scotland under-15 squad around the same time he signed for Aberdeen at age 14.

After learning his trade with Aberdeen in the early 1980s, he spent most of his playing career at Norwich City, the club with which he came to be most closely associated.

Gunn commenced his professional career with Aberdeen in 1980, (signing a week prior to Eric Black who came from the same part of the country) and forged a good relationship with then-Aberdeen manager Alex Ferguson—evidenced by the fact that in 1997 Ferguson brought Manchester United to Carrow Road for Gunn's testimonial match.

While an apprentice at Aberdeen, Gunn was a frequent babysitter for Ferguson's children.

He later said, "I probably babysat more than I played".

Gunn portrays the relationship as warm, but businesslike:

"I'd stay over and we'd read the Sunday papers together. He was good to me. I was struggling for cash once and went in and told him I was going on holiday and was there any chance of an advance. He got on the phone and said: "Big Bryan Gunn's coming down to sign a new contract." It wasn't what I meant. I got my holiday money but he got another year out of me, too."

As a youngster, Gunn did not always play in goal and he was viewed as a handy outfield player in his early years at Aberdeen.

Ferguson recalls, "He could strike a ball as well as anyone, so well in fact that I once played him at centre-forward in a reserve match ... He scored a brilliant goal ... It was a marvellous moment."

However, as a professional, and at his adult height of 6ft 2in, Gunn settled into playing in goal.

Gunn ascribes much of his goalkeeping success to the support of Belgian Marc De Clerck, a specialist goalkeeping coach at Aberdeen.

At a time when few British teams provided such training, De Clerck introduced Gunn and Scottish international keeper Jim Leighton to what were then innovative training techniques.

The goalkeepers would participate in special drills whilst training with the rest of the squad.

He was a member of the Scotland national football team, making six appearances for his country in the early 1990s.

Gunn worked for years behind the scenes at Norwich in a variety of roles, from matchday hosting to coaching.

Since the death of his young daughter from leukaemia in 1992, Gunn has been extensively involved in fundraising to combat the disease and its effects.

Gunn feels the peak of his playing career was making what he calls the save of his life in the UEFA Cup match against Bayern Munich in 1993.

This event was called the summit of Norwich City's history by The Independent.

He is one of only nine Norwich players to win the club's Player of the Year award twice.

He was made an inaugural member of Norwich City's Hall of Fame.

This was followed by a brief spell back in Scotland with Hibernian before his retirement as a player in 1998.

The city of Norwich recognised Gunn's charity work and his long association with the city's football club by naming him Sheriff for 2002.

Published in 2006, his autobiography, In Where it Hurts: My Autobiography, includes a foreword by his former manager Alex Ferguson.

He was appointed temporary manager towards the end of the 2008–09 season and then confirmed as permanent manager during the summer.

However, after a 7–1 home defeat in the opening game to local rivals Colchester United, he lost his job a week into the 2009–10 Football League One season.

As of 2011 he has raised more than £1 million for research into childhood leukaemia.

The money has been used to fund projects to improve the lives of children with leukaemia and their families, notably a national telephone support line.

His parents were James Gunn, a long-distance lorry driver, and Jessie Sinclair, a canteen worker at the Dounreay nuclear power plant; the pair had married despite being on opposite sides of a family feud stretching back to the 16th century.

James was an amateur sportsman, playing football on the right wing for local team Invergordon F.C. and winning medals at Highland games events.

The Gunn family home in Thurso was a farm, and the young Bryan would often pester the farmhands to play football with him.

They would use a turnip if no ball was available.

By the age of four he was keen on goalkeeping; he was fearless of injury and enjoyed diving on the ball.

When Bryan was four-and-a-half, the family moved to Invergordon, 20 miles from Inverness.

He attended Park Primary School in the town and joined the school football team.

Future professional Bobby Geddes was favoured over him as first-choice goalkeeper for the team; Gunn played as an outfield player until Geddes moved on to secondary school.