Proving Barnes has still got it, he manages to take out a villain with a trusted slide tackle in Sweeper! From the very first page, Bruce/Barnes questions the reader’s preconceptions about identity, as club owner “Sir L awrence Brook” becomes “Sir L aurence Brook” within the space of two sentences. But these apparent non-sequiturs are of course the whole point: the ghastly, nauseous reality of the ‘ordinary’ – Bruce has been reading his existentialists!

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. Despite his goalscoring exploits for United and Newcastle, the ‘one in five’ label hung like a millstone around his neck whenever he was considered for England. As one of the country’s most accomplished defenders in the early 1990s, Steve Bruce was expert at breaking up opposition attacks. Steve Bruce has confirmed to Sky Sports that he definitely wrote the trio of detective novels that have taken the internet by storm.

Pencil over ear, tongue in teeth, well-worn copy of Lancashire Moorland Digest open by his side - his lovely big cow’s face set in glassy-eyed focus. 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.

Not to mention a gay, nightclub-owning drug dealer with a glad eye for middle aged football managers and a thrilling top-of-the-table clash between Leddersford and Fulham that’s watched over by a rogue sniper intent on killing our trusty hero. He was asked this by Sky Sports in October last year external-link and his answer was as decisive as Steve Barnes cracking a case: "No, have you read them? The front cover depicts this scene beautifully, except for the fact that Duffy looks like a giant super-imposed on a football pitch. At the height of his success with United, Bruce was contacted by Jack Charlton, manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, who had discovered that, due to his mother's place of birth, Bruce was eligible to play for Ireland. It was a long time ago, and I'm not sure I want to be reminded of how bad they were," author Bruce told Eurosport in 2013.All of the midfielder’s caps came in a two-year period while he was at Liverpool, either side of a World Cup finals he had to miss due to a metatarsal injury. Like several other future professionals from the area, [9] he played football for Wallsend Boys Club. On World Book Day, we take a look at a handful of those players and managers - and one wordsmith in particular - who put pen to paper on something other than a contract or the standard tell-all tale.

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.But ahead of his side's trip to Birmingham on Sunday, Bruce exclusively revealed to our reporter Jonathan Oakes that it was indeed him who wrote the books starring Steve Barnes, the manager of fictional club Leddersfield Town who solves crimes in his spare time.