Steve Bruce suffered abuse by Newcastle fans who called him “a fat waste of space, a stupid, inept cabbage head” leaving his wife “worried”.
Bruce felt the wrath of Newcastle’s fans on Sunday when he lost 3-2 to Spurs despite the celebratory atmosphere at the first game under new Saudi ownership. The 60-year-old coach was booed by the crowd and it was only a matter of time until the club’s new owners pulled the trigger.
On Wednesday, the new management sucked Bruce who has already admitted he may bow out of management days after his 1,000 th game in the dugout.
“I think this might be my last job”. Said Bruce.
“It’s not just about me, it’s taken its toll on my whole family because they are all Geordies and I can’t ignore that”.
“They have been worried about me, especially my wife Jan. What an amazing woman she is, incredible. She’s just a fantastic woman, wife and mother and grandmother. She dealt with the death of my parents. Hers have not been very well. And then she had me to worry about and what I’ve been going through the last couple of years”.
“By the time I got to Newcastle, I thought I could handle everything thrown at me. But it has been very tough to never really be wanted, to feel that people wanted me to fail, to read people constantly saying I would fail, that I was useless, a fat waste of space, a stupid, tactically inept cabbage head or whatever ”.
“When we were doing ok results wise, it was ‘yeah but they style of football is rubbish, I was just lucky’ whereas it was ridiculous and persistent even when the results were good”.
Regardless, if Bruce ends his managerial career at this point, it will be after 1,000 matches and spells at Sheffield, Huddersfield, twice at Wigan, Crystal Palace, Birmingham, Sunderland, Hull, Aston Villa, Sheffield Wednesday and finally Newcastle United.