Bryan Gunn
Bryan James Gunn is a Scottish former professional goalkeeper and football manager. After beginning his career at 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. This was followed by a brief spell back in Scotland with Hibernian before his retirement as a player in 1998.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
Early life
Gunn was born on 22 December 1963 in Thurso, Scotland, "twenty miles from John o'Groats". 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 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 Gunn 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.
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.
Club career
Aberdeen
Gunn commenced his professional career with Aberdeen in 1980, and forged a good relationship with 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: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, 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. Gunn also notes the influence of Aberdeen coach Teddy Scott, who taught the value of hard work and dedication; Gunn also served as a boot boy for Alex McLeish. Leighton's presence meant that Gunn played only 21 games for Aberdeen. He made his debut against Hibernian at Pittodrie on 30 October 1982, and went on to keep four clean sheets for the club. Despite being rivals for a first-team place, Gunn had an excellent relationship with Leighton that included joining Leighton's family for a meal once a week.
Gunn's training and performances for the reserve team and occasional first-team appearances paid dividends: he was called up for the Scotland under-21 team, and made his debut in November 1983 against East Germany. As a reserve team player, Gunn won the Scottish 2nd XI Cup and Aberdeenshire Cup in 1981–82, and the SFL Reserve Cup in 1984–85 At senior level, he also received Scottish League Cup and European Cup Winners Cup winner's medals while with Aberdeen, although he was an unused substitute in both finals. He made an unexpected appearance in the 1986 European Cup quarter final, against Gothenburg. "Jim and I were warming up and he lost contact lenses I ended up being included in the starting line up," Gunn recalls. Gunn had an excellent match: The Glasgow Herald's match report stated, "Only outstanding work by Willie Miller and Bryan Gunn kept the Swedes at bay". As well as making several key saves, he was credited with playing a part in Aberdeen's second goal following a long kick upfield.
As Leighton was unlikely to be dislodged, Ferguson promised to find Gunn another club, and fulfilled his pledge when he sold him for £100,000 to Norwich City in October 1986. The transfer nearly went through in the summer of 1986, but Ferguson delayed the move until October to allow time for Leighton to recover from an injury.
Norwich City
Gunn says of the move south: "Norwich was easy to settle into, a bit like Aberdeen in many ways — a city surrounded by lovely countryside and lots of farms." However, since he joined the club partway into the new season, he initially found it difficult to take over as first-choice goalkeeper. Gunn had been bought as a replacement for England international goalkeeper Chris Woods, who had moved to Rangers. Meanwhile, Graham Benstead made a series of good performances and Norwich were top of the league. Ken Brown wanted to be fair to Benstead and made Gunn wait. A 6–2 defeat at Anfield proved to be the catalyst for Gunn's promotion to the first team. He made his debut in a Full Members Cup win against Coventry City, conceding a penalty, and made his league debut in a 2–1 victory against Tottenham Hotspur at Carrow Road on 8 November 1986.Norwich went on to finish fifth in the First Division in his first season, their highest-ever league finish at the time. By May 1988 Gunn's consistency meant his value had risen considerably, and the club reportedly declined a £500,000 offer from Ian Porterfield to take Gunn back to Aberdeen. The purpose of the proposed transfer was to replace Leighton, who by then had moved to Manchester United, where he was reunited with Alex Ferguson.
Norwich reached the semi-final of the FA Cup in 1989 with Gunn in goal, but he missed the semi-final in 1992 through injury. What has been described as his — and Norwich's — greatest moment came in their upset victory over European giants Bayern Munich in the UEFA Cup in 1993. The Independent described the match as "the pinnacle of Norwich City's history". Gunn made several saves that kept the Canaries in the match. He describes the save he made from Bayern striker Adolfo Valencia as the finest of his career; it has also been described as "one of the most outstanding saves by a City goalkeeper". However, he was involved in an own-goal incident in an East Anglian derby match in the 1995–96 season, when a backpass from Robert Ullathorne bounced awkwardly off the pitch and over Gunn's attempted clearance kick.
In November 1989, Gunn was involved in a controversial incident that attracted significant media attention. Norwich played Arsenal at Highbury and with five minutes remaining, Arsenal's David O'Leary scored an equaliser that brought the scores to 3–3. Then, in the dying seconds of the match, the referee awarded Arsenal a penalty kick — and the chance to seal the match. The Norwich players were already annoyed by the match situation, and their perception was that the decision was "really dodgy". Gunn saved Lee Dixon's shot, but the ball was not cleared. In the resulting melee, Mark Bowen and Ian Culverhouse for Norwich and Alan Smith for Arsenal challenged for the ball. "The three of them got in an almighty tangle and the ball, along with all of them, was bundled over the line," Gunn remembers. The goal was awarded, but the situation rapidly deteriorated: the three players in the goal had "a little skirmish". Separately, Arsenal's Nigel Winterburn gave "a gloat to Dale Gordon, who promptly pushed him". The result was mayhem:
"All of a sudden it was kicking off, big time. Everyone started piling in, right in front of me... The only people not involved were John Lukic, Tony Adams, David O'Leary and me... I went over to break things up... and spotted the cavalry coming over the half-way line, in the shape of O'Leary and Adams. I felt it was my job to head them off at the pass and moved in, instinctively grabbing Adams with one hand and thumping him with the other."
All but one of the 22 players on the pitch were involved in the fracas, but no one was sent off. The next day, the newspapers carried headlines and photos of what they called "The Highbury Brawl". That afternoon, Gunn received a phone call from a Today journalist, who told him that the Arsenal players had said Gunn had instigated the fight. Enraged, Gunn retorted that it was the other way around. Monday's headline read "Gunn blames Arsenal". Gunn was censured by The Football Association and warned about his future conduct. Both clubs were fined, and Gunn was docked a fortnight's wages by Norwich City.
Under the management of John Deehan, Norwich were seventh in the Premier League in the 1994–95 season when Gunn broke and dislocated his ankle whilst playing against Nottingham Forest. His importance to the team was underlined when they subsequently plummeted down the table, winning just one of their remaining 17 games as Gunn recovered. The team was ultimately relegated. Gunn retained a regular first team place for the 1995–96 season and, beginning with the match against Wolverhampton Wanderers on 17 February 1996, began to captain the side, initially in the absence of regular captain Jon Newsome and then on a permanent basis after Newsome left the club. However, when Mike Walker took over as manager for the following 1996–97 season, he appointed Ian Crook as captain instead.
Gunn's final first-team game for the club was a 1–0 defeat to Crewe Alexandra on 31 January 1998. According to the Sunday Mirror, he produced "a sparkling display", which proved his abilities had "not been dulled by time". Gunn made 478 first team appearances for Norwich in all competitions. He was voted Norwich City Player of the Year in 1988 and 1993. The latter award came at the end of the 1992–93 FA Premier League season, in which Norwich finished third in the Premier League, their best-ever performance. The club awarded Gunn a testimonial match in 1996, and Alex Ferguson brought Manchester United to Carrow Road.