Daily Mail

Everyone hid behind a pillar to avoid the. . . FERGIE HAIRDRYER!

Steve Bruce recalls nine great years at Old Trafford ... but today he wants his first win there as a boss

- by CRAIG HOPE

STEVE BRUCE has a decision to make. Not with regards to formation or personnel. Rather, the working title of his autobiogra­phy, Theatre of Dreams.

‘It’s time to change that,’ declares the Newcastle boss, who returns to Old Trafford for the first time with his hometown club today having drawn one and lost nine there in 10 games as a manager.

Bruce has shelved his book in light of his summer appointmen­t at St James’ Park and hopes the final chapter could yet be his best. Nine years as a Manchester United player under Sir Alex Ferguson, however, has given him ample material.

Bruce takes us back to his first day at the club in 1987, arriving from Norwich City for £800,000.

‘I remember Sir Alex picked me up from the airport with my good lady. Not many managers would do that now,’ he recalls.

‘He took me off to my medical and kept asking, “What’s up with your knee?”. I didn’t know I had a problem! But it was in my medical records. Now, with scans, I’m not sure I would have passed it. What got me through was them looking at my playing record and seeing I’d missed hardly any games. So they discovered this problem with my knee — and looking back, later on in life, they were right!’

They need not have worried. Bruce made more than 300 League appearance­s, not that he envisaged getting much game-time on his first day.

‘I walked in and it was Bryan Robson, Norman Whiteside, Paul McGrath, Gordon Strachan — four years previous I was playing for Gillingham! That first training session you realise they are top, top players. You’re like, “Wow!”. It was mouthwater­ing.

‘I was trying to replace McGrath, and I’m looking at him thinking, “Jesus, this isn’t possible!”. I was in awe of the place but was determined to enjoy it.

‘I had all the s*** for seven years at Gillingham, playing at Scunthorpe and Grimsby away. So I was going to making a fist of it.

‘But I remember my debut, Portsmouth away. In the old dressingro­om at Fratton Park there was a pillar that stood alone in the corner. When I came in at half-time there were about eight players sitting around this pillar. I sat on my own on the other side, thinking, “Why are they all sitting there?”. We weren’t playing well. Fergie came in, and he started. I soon understood why they were all hiding behind that pillar!’

It would take another six years, but Bruce (below) was instrument­al in United’s first Premier League title, scoring two late goals in a now- famous 2- 1 home win over Sheffield Wednesday.

‘If you ask any Man United supporter, they hadn’t won the League for 26 years, and the turning point was my two goals that day. Their goalkeeper, Chris Woods, was my next door neighbour at Norwich and he was staying with me that night — I think he let the first one in! ‘But the manner of it epitomised Manchester United, 97th minute, still trying to get the winner and the player who crosses is Gary Pallister, one centre-half crossing for another to head it in.’ Twelve months on and United had won the Double for the first time in their history. ‘The ’94 team was the best team I ever played in. Pallister, Paul Ince and Roy Keane, Mark Hughes and Eric Cantona, Ryan Giggs and Andrei Kanchelski­s, Denis Irwin and Paul Parker. ‘They could fight, they could play football and they were winners. There was a desire about them that was his (Ferguson’s) and it epitomised what he was all about. He wanted to surround himself with people who could win. He had a ferocious will to win and achieve.

‘But he was a master in turning a team around as well. In 1995 we thought he had lost the plot when he let Ince, Kanchelski­s, and Hughes go. We thought, “Wow”, and then he brought in the kids.

‘He was always buying someone to replace me as well. It was Paul

Parker, David May, or someone else. I’m thinking, “S***, I’ve got to be even better this year”. That stays with me, even now.’

Victory today would see Bruce’s Newcastle climb above his former club at the halfway stage of the campaign, a remarkable feat given the turbulence of early season.

Much like his approach on that first day at Manchester United, Bruce is determined to enjoy a chance he never thought he would get.

‘When I got the phone call (to manage) here, I thought, “This is as good as it gets for me”. Everybody associates me with Man United because I had nine years there, for those who can remember.

‘But how many Geordies have managed this great club of ours? For that, I’m very, very privileged. I am certainly going to make a fist of it.’

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