Steve Bruce has revealed he could quit football entirely after vile abuse from angry Newcastle United fans affected the mental health of his wife Janet and himself.
The 60-year-old was sacked by the club’s new mega-rich Saudi owners on Wednesday, October 20, and has already admitted he may bow out of management just days after his 1,000th game in the dugout.
He told The Telegraph “I think this might be my last job, 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, very tough,’ he added. ‘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. And it was from day one. When we were doing ok results-wise, it was “yeah but the style of football is rubbish” or I was just “lucky”. It was ridiculous and persistent, even when the results were good”
Newcastle currently sits 19th in the Premier League, above only newly-promoted Norwich City.