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Sunderland fans today celebrating exactly eight years since Steve Bruce was sacked

4 years ago
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An interesting anniversary for Steve Bruce as his team take on Manchester City.

An anniversary flagged up by Sunderland fans…

Today is exactly eight years since Steve Bruce was sacked by the Wearsiders.

A disastrous start to the season saw Sunderland win only two of their first 14 games and he was booted out after losing at home to Wigan in front of 37,883 at the Stadium of Light.

Since 30 November 2011, Steve Bruce only managed two more seasons in the Premier League and in one of those he was relegated.

I bet he was as surprised as the Newcastle fans were when after resigning himself to being a second tier manager, Mike Ashley then came knocking.

Interesting to see this Sunderland perspective on Steve Bruce and his time there.

Article extract from Salut! Sunderland fan website:

I am cobbling this together eight years to the day since Steve Bruce cleared his desk at The Stadium of Light and departed from Wearside complaining that the crowd had turned against him because he “was a Newcastle supporter”.

An era (by our low standards) that started with such promise, ended in acrimony as the Corbridge born and Wallsend brought up Tynesider stumped off into the sunset, chuntering away about being disliked for his Geordie roots.

Of course, he was wrong, just as he was when he twisted on about Villa fans never forgiving him for playing for and managing Birmingham City or that some Wednesday supporters never took to him because of his stint as a fledgling manager at Bramall Lane. Should he ever manage Leeds United and it all goes wrong, he can blame it on them being against a man who was in charge at Huddersfield Town or if he takes over at Bolton, he can expect animosity for being in the Wigan Athletic hot seat. Throw in a six months spell at Crystal Palace and a longer stay at Hull City and you can see that Steve moves around a bit.

Now at Newcastle United, his Great Geordie Homecoming was a trifle flat when his Wallsend roots were called into doubt on a vox pop piece on local television.

This was his first crack at a big club in a big stadium after years of stagnant clubs and owners with whom he fell out.

He blamed all and sundry, particularly the fans who disliked him “because he was a Geordie” – as had been Bob Stokoe, Gordon Armstrong, Mick McGiven and Dennis Tueart. What Steve could/can never do is accept that he has made mistakes with players, systems and how he approaches games.

But compared with where we are now, these were halcyon days, never to return.

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