Steve Bruce

Stephen Roger Bruce (born 31 December 1960) is an English professional football manager and former player who played as a centre-back.

He most recently managed West Bromwich Albion.

Born in Corbridge, Northumberland, he was a promising schoolboy footballer but was rejected by several professional clubs.

He was on the verge of quitting the game altogether when he was offered a trial with Gillingham.

He was also selected for the Newcastle Schools representative team, and at the age of 13 was among a group of players from that team who were selected to serve as ball boys at the 1974 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.

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 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.

Commentators and contemporaries have described him as one of the best English players of the 1980s and 1990s never to play for his country at full international level.

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.

Bruce was offered an apprenticeship and went on to play more than 200 games for the club before joining Norwich City in 1984, winning the League Cup in 1985.

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.

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 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 Season, but the team was relegated to the Second Division.

In 1987, he moved to Manchester United, with whom he achieved great success, winning twelve trophies including three Premier League titles, three FA Cups, one League Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup.

He also became the first English player of the 20th century to captain a team to the Double.

Despite his success on the field, he was never selected to play for the England national team.

His final match in charge was his 1,000th in club management.

In February 2022, Bruce took over as manager of West Bromwich Albion but was dismissed in October of the same year due to a poor start to the 2022–23 season.

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, said that he 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.

Bruce began his managerial career with Sheffield United, and spent short periods of time managing Huddersfield Town, Wigan Athletic and Crystal Palace before joining Birmingham City in 2001.

He twice led Birmingham to promotion to the Premier League during his tenure of nearly six years, but resigned in 2007 to begin a second spell as manager of Wigan.

At the end of the 2008–09 season he resigned to take over as manager of Sunderland, a post he held until he was dismissed in November 2011.

In 2009, he was voted into Gillingham's Hall of Fame.

Seven months later, he was appointed manager of Hull City and led the club to two promotions to the Premier League, as well as the 2014 FA Cup Final, before leaving in July 2016.

He took over at Aston Villa four months later but was dismissed in October 2018.

He took over as manager of Sheffield Wednesday in February 2019, and left in July that year to take over at Newcastle United.

He managed the club through the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping them in the Premier League, and left in November 2021 following the club's takeover by the Public Investment Fund.