Steve Bruce
Stephen Roger Bruce is an English professional football manager and former player who was a centre-back in a twenty-year playing career. He was most recently the head coach of EFL League One club Blackpool.
Born in Corbridge, Northumberland, Bruce 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 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. 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. 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.
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. 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 became 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. 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. He was appointed head coach of Blackpool in September 2024 but was later sacked in October 2025.
Early life
Bruce was born in Corbridge in Northumberland, the elder of two sons of Joe and Sheenagh Bruce. His father was local; his mother was a native of Bangor, 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. 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 Peter Beardsley, another player from the Wallsend club, 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.
Playing 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 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 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. 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 league finish to date 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 . 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 European 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 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 Republic of Ireland national team, who had discovered that, due to his mother's place of birth, Bruce was eligible to play for Ireland. Bruce states in his autobiography that further investigation revealed that, while his earlier appearance for England B in a friendly was not an issue, his appearances for the England Youth team in a UEFA-sanctioned tournament prohibited him from playing for the senior team of another country. He has subsequently claimed that he chose not to play for Ireland as it would have caused problems for his club at a time when UEFA restricted the number of foreign players that a club could have in their squad in its competitions.
United dominated English football in the 1993–94 season, winning a second consecutive Premier League title and then defeating Chelsea in the FA Cup final to become only the fourth team, and Bruce the first English captain, to win the Double in the 20th century, The 1994–95 season was a disappointing one for Bruce and United, as the club failed in its bid to win a third consecutive Premier League title and lost to Everton in the FA Cup final.
During the following season Bruce was offered the job of manager by three clubs, but Ferguson refused to allow him to pursue the opportunities as he felt the player still had a role to play in the United team. Bruce made a further 30 Premier League appearances, as United managed to overcome a 12-point deficit to Newcastle United to win the championship once again. A week later he was left out of United's squad for the FA Cup final due to a slight injury. At the end of the match Eric Cantona, who had captained the team and scored the only goal in a 1–0 win over Liverpool, attempted to persuade Bruce to be the one to receive the trophy, but Bruce declined. Ferguson denied that Bruce's omission was a sign that his time at the club was nearing an end, but Bruce opted to join First Division club Birmingham City on a free transfer, having signed a contract valued at nearly £2 million over two years, which made him one of the highest-paid players in the country.