Striker!: No. 1 (Steve Barnes S.)

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Few people realise that a decade ago Bruce self-published two short football-based thrillers – sort of soccer-based versions of Dick Francis – entitled Striker! They were my team, I went to support them as a boy and being a Geordie it's in-bred, you follow the club still the same today.

The team reached the Second Division play-offs but lost in the semi-finals, [100] and Bruce almost immediately left the club, where he had been in charge for less than two months, to take over as manager of Crystal Palace.

Bruce is supposed to be investigating a murder and will get distracted for long passages where he describes his car instead. The manager said: "When I came to the club I thought we're a little bit same in the middle of the pitch. The episodes proved so popular that the podcast created and began selling Leddersford Town replica shirts and mugs. But we're alright for his type in the middle of the pitch and that's the reason why we've let him go, to free up somebody else. He played 11 games – all of them friendlies between 1993 and 1998 – while watching Euro 96 and the World Cup in 1998 from the bench.

Striker Saido Berahino's run without scoring lasted 913 days when he was at Stoke between 2017 and 2019 - that was only over a 48-game period for the player once strongly linked with a move to Tottenham.

Bruce began his managerial career with Sheffield United, and spent short periods of time managing Huddersfield Town, Wigan Athletic and Crystal Palace before joining Birmingham City in 2001. While playing for Birmingham, Bruce was the subject of several bids from his old Manchester United colleague Bryan Robson to sign for Middlesbrough, but the transfer never happened. First came visiting defender John Egan's second yellow card, after he pulled back Joelinton as he tried to make a beeline towards goal. The narration is pretty good, with the soft Geordie tones of Bruce well replicated and there are some funny asides thrown in by the narrator as he grapples with the text. In January 2019, Bruce was appointed manager of Championship club Sheffield Wednesday with effect from the start of the following month.

Newcastle manager Steve Bruce said: "He probably suffered more in the lockdown, he had no family over and he was stuck in an apartment somewhere.Following the lifting of the five-year ban on English clubs from European competitions, which had been imposed after the Heysel Stadium disaster, United became England's first entrants into the European Cup Winners' Cup in the 1990–91 season.