Steve Bruce sees wish come true but Newcastle’s spirits may wreak havoc | Jonathan Wilson

O nce upon a time, perhaps, many years ago when he was still a teenager living in Walker, east of the centre of Newcastle, Steve Bruce found a mysterious old lamp. It was dusty and so he gave it a polish and, as he rubbed it, there was a flash and a bang and a puff of smoke. A great figure billowed up, looming over the young midfielder – as he then was. “Steve,” the spirit intoned, “you have freed me from the lamp and for this I will grant you whatever you desire.”

“Well,” said the young Bruce, his delivery folksy even then, “what I’d really like is a contract with Newcastle United.”

“And so shall it be,” the genie said and, with that, he was gone.

The genie has had to work hard to fulfil his promise. On Sunday afternoon against Arsenal, at the age of 58, Bruce will finally be involved with Newcastle in a competitive fixture. The conditions, though, are extraordinarily difficult, with the fans in near revolt, with many pining for his predecessor and the centre-forward who has followed him to China, threatening boycotts and regarding Bruce in some way as an agent of Mike Ashley’s despised ownership. For a long time Newcastle have been less Aladdin than Allardyce.

Bruce played for Wallsend Boys, the famous club that produced players such as Peter Beardsley, Michael Carrick and Alan Shearer. As many others found, though, St James’ Park may have been only six miles away but the road there was circuitous.

Bruce had trials at Newcastle but was turned down. Sunderland, Derby and Southport also said no and he was about to sign on as an apprentice at the Swan Hunter shipyard when Gillingham offered him a final chance. Beardsley was rejected in the same trial but Bruce was offered a contract. Within a year he had been converted into a centre-back and yet still finished the 1978‑79 season as the reserve team’s top scorer.

Two composed performances in 0-0 draws against Everton in the FA Cup in 1984 confirmed Bruce’s talent. Arthur Cox, the Newcastle manager, rang his Gillingham counterpart, Keith Peacock, to ask if Bruce might be interested in a return home. Peacock did not pass on the call. Perhaps Cox would have pushed his interest further but that summer he stood down and Bruce went to Norwich.

Three years later Bruce had a meeting at Washington services on the A1 with the then Newcastle manager Willie McFaul – who had been in goal at Hillsborough in 1974 when a 13‑year‑old Bruce had seen Newcastle beat Burnley 2-0 in an FA Cup semi-final. Again, though, the move to Tyneside never came to pass and Bruce ended up going to Manchester United.

As a manager Bruce quickly gained a reputation for not being shy of walking out on a job but still, although he was repeatedly linked to the Newcastle role, the opportunity never quite came at the right time. He stayed at Birmingham having been a strong candidate after the dismissals of both Sir Bobby Robson and Graeme Souness.

When he did return to the north‑east it was with Sunderland in 2009, a spell that ended dismally two years later, something he blamed on his Newcastle affiliations. Some fans, it is true, did use that as a stick to beat him with as form disintegrated after the sale of Darren Bent, but Bruce’s focus on the issue in his final weeks in the job seemed a matter of projection, that he could never feel quite at home on Wearside.

This time, when the offer came, there was no saying no, even when he was reportedly so far from being the preferred choice that the question was less when a shortlist becomes simply a list than when a list becomes a directory. Sheffield Wednesday, understandably, feel aggrieved at Bruce abandoning them – especially given how accommodating they had been to his need, after an enormously difficult year personally, for a rest before taking the job.

Steve Bruce smiles during Newcastle training.



Steve Bruce smiles during Newcastle training. Photograph: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images

But of more immediate concern to Bruce is the fact that, for all he is a local hero returning home, a favourite trope of Geordie myth from Shearer to Jimmy Nail in Spender, he feels not just an underwhelming appointment but an appeaser. The mood of the 16,000 at last weekend’s friendly win over Saint-Étienne was largely benign and the recent signings of Joelinton and Allan Saint-Maximin have soothed frustration to an extent but nobody should think that will last long if performances are poor or results bad. Localness will afford him some additional sympathy, but only some.

In that regard Bruce is part of a surprising trend. After years of encroaching technocracy, Newcastle join Manchester United and Chelsea in beginning the season with a manager whose chief qualification appears to be that he “knows the club” – albeit that Ole Gunnar Solskjær and Frank Lampard’s knowledge comes from having contributed to periods of extraordinary success as players, while Bruce’s is limited to ducking under the Gallowgate turnstiles as a lad. When all else fails, perhaps what remains for boards after cycling through a catalogue of managers, is a base appeal to football’s love of narrative, with at least the short-term benefit that fans will not turn immediately on one of their own.

Who knows how Bruce dreamed of his homecoming. Perhaps he saw a rapturous St James’ saluting the returning hero, Mark Knopfler playing in the background, as he prepared to lead an eager squad of untapped talent to Newcastle’s first trophy in half a century. But presumably not like this, with a hostile fanbase so disillusioned they are picking over the details of a Belgian tax case in the hope it unseats their owner. And even then, just as the limelight has fallen on him, he has been barged out of it, a ponytail flapping across his face by the return of Andy Carroll, who actually played for the club. It feels the genie has rather let Bruce down.

Or perhaps this is the way it was always meant to be: as Brendan Fraser found in Bedazzled, wish‑granting spirits can have a cruelly mischievous streak.

source: theguardian.com