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Steve Bruce opens up on Newcastle trophy win and how Blackpool changed retirement plans

WALLY MEETS STEVE BRUCE: Former Manchester United captain Steve Bruce thought his career in football was over after leaving Newcastle but has rallied amid the backdrop of family heartbreak

[Steve Bruce]

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Blackpool boss Steve Bruce is enjoying a career renaissance with the Tangerines(Image: Getty Images)

Football is a fickle mistress, and Steve Bruce found out the hard way that paradoxes of today are prejudices of tomorrow. In the court of social media hanging judges, when Bruce took 44 and 45 points from his two full seasons in charge of Newcastle United, he was derided by elements of the Toon fanbase as a flop.

It is a strange paradox when his predecessor, Rafa Benitez, took 44 and 45 points from his two full Premier League seasons at St James Park and he was acclaimed as a genius.

In a week of unconfined celebration on Tyneside, after the Carabao Cup triumph ended one of sports longest unexplained barren runs, Bruce is too diplomatic to reconstruct a strident defence of his reign in the Geordie nation where he was brought up. So lets say it for him: Bruce was not a failure as Newcastle manager. Not a messiah, but not a failure. He held the fort where others had toppled off the drawbridge into the moat.

The evidence was there, on the pitch, when the final whistle at Wembley last Sunday ended 56 years of fumbling for the key to the treasure chest at one of the games grand old institutions. Callum Wilson? Hired by Bruce. His 49 goals in 80 starts for the Toon kept the floodwaters a safe distance from the sandbags in less gilded times.

Joelinton? Lined up by Benitez but signed on Bruces watch. Joe Willock? Yep - another Brucey bonus. Emil Krafth? Signed by you-know-who.

Yes, Newcastle have gone to another level - Champions League football one season, a first trophy in 56 years the next - since Amanda Staveley came riding over the horizon like Queen of the Iceni with her Saudi accomplices.

And, yes, Eddie Howe inherited a struggling team in November 2021 at a club who had been relegated twice in the previous 12 years during an age of austerity under previous owner Mike Ashleys parsimony.

But even Howes first 10 games in charge yielded only one win, including an FA Cup embarrassment at home to fourth-tier Cambridge United, before the purse strings were loosened and the green shoots of recovery sprouted.

[Steve Bruce]

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Steve Bruce spent two years with Newcastle(Image: Getty Images)

Wast Steve Bruce a success or a failure as Newcastle manager? Share your thoughts in the comments below

If Bruce, a decent man to his core, harbours any bitterness about being hounded out of his boyhood club, he doesnt show it. First and foremost, Im a Geordie - I was a Newcastle fan as a kid and it never leaves you, he said.

Im delighted that they have finally won a trophy for the many, many good people who work for the club and the supporters who have waited so long for success. Without comparing budgets between now and then, all I will say is that its all right having money to spend - but you still have to spend it wisely.

I thought Nick Pope, Kieran Trippier and Dan Burn were inspired signings, all really good value. That midfield three (Bruno Guimaraes, Joelinton and Sandro Tonali) is top, top-drawer and now they have a world-beater in Alexander Isak. I hope its just the start for them.

As a player, Bruce was a decorated defensive warrior at Manchester United and probably the best player never to win an England cap in the Premier League era.

[Steve Bruce]

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Bruce is now in charge of League One side Blackpool(Image: Getty Images)

He transferred that fearlessness into the dugout and he is the only manager to take on both sides of the Tyne-Wear divide at Newcastle and Sunderland, the Second City fault line at Aston Villa and Birmingham and the Steel City front line at Sheffield United and Wednesday.

Promoted twice with Birmingham and Hull City, as well as reaching the 2014 FA Cup final with the Tigers, he is one of only 38 managers to take charge of more than 1,000 games. Bruce, now 64, probably thought he had fielded all the poison arrows life could propel at him when he lost both his parents in the space of 12 weeks as Villa closed in on the Championship play-offs in 2018.

But five months ago, with Blackpools charge up the League One table gaining momentum on the back of four straight wins, he suffered unspeakable tragedy when his four-month-old grandson, Madison, died. It punched a hole in the Tangerines season and the familys heartache was unbearable.

[Steve Bruce ]

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Steve Bruce has enjoyed a colourful career(Image: Getty Images)

It puts every piece of rubbish thrown at you as a football manager into perspective, said Bruce. You somehow manage to cope, and football can be a distraction for a bit, but it was a harrowing time and it doesnt go away. Its something you wouldnt wish on your worst enemy.

Bruce thought he would never work again in management after leaving Newcastle, and he was picked up by TV cameras following Englands cricketers tonking the Aussies at the Twenty20 World Cup in Dubai barely a week after his exit. But West Bromwich Albion offered him an encore, and after links with the Jamaican and South Korean international jobs came to nothing, the call from Blackpool came out of the blue.

He can still fire up lost souls like a Hells Angels can fire up a Harley Davidson - striker Ashley Fletcher has already scored more goals in one season under Bruce than in the four previous years put together.

I honestly thought I was going to retire after Newcastle, he said. But youre a long time retired and I soon realised I wasnt quite ready for that. I hadnt got football out of my system.

Im enjoying it at Blackpool - Im working for really good people and the supporters have been terrific. The play-offs may be a long shot for us now, but if it doesnt happen lets have another crack at it next year.

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