Steve Bruce

Salut! Sunderland’s 13 years, 13 SAFC managers: (3) Steve Bruce

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Our former boss: another great portrait by Owen Lennox, Sunderland artist and friend of Salut! Sunderland

Monsieur Salut writes: the other day, Wrinkly Pete – Peter Lynn – wrote, in a message our wretched technical issues prevent from being published as a comment, that Pete Sixsmith‘s outstanding appreciation of Martin Harvey reminded him ‘how I will miss this website and articles like this’.

It is typical of Sixer’s commitment to Salut! Sunderland throughout its 13 years of life that even as he breathed a sigh of relief that we should now be winding down, he was devising one last series: the 13 managers who have accompanied this site on its sometimes bumpy ride. It’s been bumpy for them, too, as Steve Bruce would attest.

Bruce was hugely divisive figure. The highly successful author Terry Deary (Horrible Histories, anyone?) told us: ‘I gave up my season ticket when Steve Bruce was appointed manager. I will renew it as soon as he leaves’. I would sometimes point out that he was the only manager since Peter Reid – and remains the only manager – to deliver a top 10 Premier League finish. But he had faults and forfeited a lot of respect with post-dismissal remarks about our club and its fans.

Here is how Pete remembers him …

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Aston Villa ‘Who are You?’: Bruce, Grabban, Birmingham rivalry and SAFC’s ‘necessary’ relegation

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Tom: ‘Like Villa, I’m under Chinese ownership’;

Tom Jolliffe* cannot see beyond an away win at the Stadium of Light tomorrow. At least he applies a neat sense of humour, and traces of sympathy, to his asnwers about our plight and his club Aston Villa’s buoyant current state and longer-term prospects (which should not, in his view, include much room for Lewis Grabban beyond the Championship). And however controversial this will be, Monsieur Salut thinks he’s closer to being right than wrong in his assessment of Steve Bruce …

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Crowing About: why Coleman’s words are cutting the mustard

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Jake: ‘click my image to join the Salut! Sunderland Facebook group’

For his second contribution to the pages of Salut! Sunderland,  Martin Crow compares and contrasts – favourably – the Chris Coleman way with words, when talking publicly about Sunderland AFC, with the mix of gibberish, gallows humour, boorishness, beyond-the-pale philosophy and heavy gloom that has gone before …

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If Millwall’s visit isn’t worrying enough, Steve Bruce’s Aston Villa are up next

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An ominous reunion with our former boss looms. Portrait of Steve Bruce by Owen Lennox, an acclaimed Sunderland artist

Sunderland’s shameful home record will become officially the worst in English football history on Saturday if Millwall are not beaten at the Stadium of Light. Nineteen games – 18 in the Premier League and Championship and one in the FA Cup – have passed since a scrappy 1-0 defeat of Watford in December last year. That is a winless home run shared by Dagenham and Redbridge, Derby County and Nottingham Forest. Are we really about to make the record our own? Stand by for a bleak assessment of our club’s present crisis …


Perhaps the best that can be said about the visit to Aston Villa next Tuesday is that at least Sunderland won’t be at home. The match comes four days after the managerless club must beat Millwall to avoid setting that wholly unwanted record for failing to win at home.

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End of season reviews 2016-17 (1): ‘hire and fire’ is the Lars word

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Lars Knutsen touching base

STOP PRESS – Lars submitted this piece well before the season end, before the Arsenal game in fact. It has been sitting in the draft folder for a week and would you know it – within minutes of it going live Moyes resigns. MD

Malcolm Dawson, deputy editor, writes: at the end of a season that will linger long in the memory as one we would wish to forget, Salut! Sunderland approached both its regular and occasional contributors for their thoughts. Don’t be fooled by the name – Lars Knutsen is Mackem through and through and even though his work took him away from his Boldon roots to Cambridge via Scandinavia and the USA. he retains his love of SAFC. Working as he did in the pharmaceutical sector  you’d think he might have driven his troops into researching a cure for the compulsion to follow a club that has been a long term underachiever but no – like the rest of us he is stuck with his lot.

You can read more of Lars’s contributions here

Monsieur Salut adds: a series of painful steroid injections to a dodgy knee reminded me today it was time to launch this series of end-of-season reviews. With thanks to Malcolm for preparing Lars’s contribution for publication, let me make it clear the series is open to all Salut! Sunderland readers who have time and inclination to offer their own reviews of a season. Just let us know – leave a message below or use the contact link you’ll find somewhere on the home page

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Hull City Who are You?: ‘who could blame Bruce for walking out?’

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Mark Bradley
Mark Bradley at the Wembley playoff final

Monsieur Salut writes: At 15 Mark Bradley* is the youngest ‘Who are You?’ interviewee in the history of Salut! Sunderland. Although we take pride in the quality of this feature, it would not be hard to identify a few examples that showed considerably less maturity and vision than is evident from Mark’s replies.

Like us, he is under no illusion about the significance of Saturday’s game to both clubs and sets of supporters. Concentrating on SAFC, the season does not end if we lose; we are not safe if we win. But the need for three points is pressing, a second successive win that would make climbing out of danger seem less daunting a challenge. We should be grateful to have another struggling side as opponents after finally breaking our duck but, as we so often say, this is Sunderland and we shall see. We thank Mark for his willingness to take part in the discussion …

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Hull City ‘Who are You?’: brilliant Brucey, enigmatic Allam, dance icon Elmo

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Jake : 'we have ways of making them talk'
Jake : ‘we have ways of making them talk’

Here’s the place for some interesting thoughts on Hull City’s Sunderland connections. Brad Rial*, a Tiger with a platform (he’s a part-time trainee at the Hull Daily Mail), has a lot of time for Steve Bruce and a trio of ex-SAFC players at his club. He’s more than a little concerned about the deteriorating relationship between owner Assem Allam and the fans … oh, and he thinks we’ll lose at the KC but stay up …

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