Hard work is Alex’s secret, insists Bruce
Sunderland boss Bruce saw at close hand how the Scot went about his job during his eight and a half years at Old Trafford, a spell which brought three Premier League titles, two FA Cup and League Cup winners’ medals and European Cup Winners’ Cup and European Super Cup success.
And the one thing he learnt above all from Ferguson is that, in management, nothing can be achieved without sheer hard graft.
He said: “The one thing I am not frightened of is hard work, that’s the one thing I have taken from him.
“I don’t get in for 6.30am — I don’t know if he still does that — but always when we got there, his car was there.
“That’s the biggest thing I have learnt from him, not to take anything for granted, never to get carried away and not be afraid to work hard.
“To try to copy him, though, would be ridiculous. You would be found out very, very quickly. You have to be yourself.”
It is, of course, not the first time Bruce has taken a team back to his old stamping ground as a manager, but his sense of anticipation is perhaps more acute as he attempts to take Sunderland to the next level in the Barclays Premier League.
He has rarely returned with anything to show for his efforts, proof of Ferguson’s unquenchable thirst for success as he approaches the 23rd anniversary of his arrival at the club.
Bruce said: “If I have been asked a question on the manager once, I must have been asked 25,000 times.
“What do you say? All the superlatives have been said. He is just very, very good at what he does and that doesn’t seem to change.
“But he has got an unbelievable hunger to win and achieve, and once he wins something, it is forgotten about within a day.
“’Okay, that’s won now, what can I win again?’. That’s the way he goes. You never see him really carried away with it.”
Bruce was a member of the class of 1993 which finally ended United’s 26-year wait for a league title, and captaining the club remains the highlight of his career.
But he admits he was terrified the day in 1987 he walked into Old Trafford after clinching an £800,000 move from Norwich and set about the task of establishing himself in what was to become the foundation of a dynasty.
He said: “I was frightened. I walked into the dressing room and thought, ‘Oh my God, I have seen all these players on the telly’.
“I didn’t go there until I was 27, and I had only played two years in the top flight, so it was a bit of a gamble.
“To be fair, I think Fergie had missed out on about five or six centre-halves and I was seventh on the list, but you would have to ask him that!
“We struggled to begin with, we struggled in the early years and when we look back now and think they have won the Premier League 10 times since 1993 it’s quite staggering because it took something like 26 years to win.”
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