For Pity's Sake Bruce: SHUT UP

It's as though the builders had trapped a rat between the walls of your posh new house.

No matter what you do, where you turn, there is no way to get rid of that putrid smell.

Steve Bruce is rapidly becoming that dead rat.

You want to ignore it, to move on, but there's no way. It just permeates everything and it is getting worse.

When he was our manager he was an accomplished performer in the art of the excuse.
Whether a run of bad injuries, our inability to defend set pieces, players wanting
away and finally, when all those had run their moronic course and blips had turned into soap operas of defeat on a Coronation Street scale, then he turned his whining onto the fans.

That seemed the last move of an increasingly desperate man: that Sunderland fans should be happy with their limited lot (three home wins in a year is about as
limited as it comes, Steve). Not only that but the entire region hated him and
abused because he was a Geordie.

Ignoring for the moment that Bruce's grasp of geography is akin to Icarus's
understanding of solar power it was the defining moment of his managerial stint. Not even the 5-1 trashing could come close to that insult. It denegrated the hope which has so often been the only fuel left for generations of fans. It spat in our faces.
Shut up and accept your fate, he told us.

Well Steve: It is long since time you took that same advice.

And you can do it with a hefty pay off package in your pants.

There is absolutely no need for this constant moaning about Geordies, tenth place, the glories of spotting McClean, not enough time and how you are responsible for anything since achieved and not at all at fault for anything that has gone wrong.
He's even now taken to attacking the media which, for far too long, were willing lap dogs to his revisionist view of our club. If there were an Olympic sport for moaning then Bruce would comfortably stand astride of all three places on the platform.

So please, somewhere out there in football land must be someone who wants him. Maybe if he gets a new team, a new set of victims for some up to date excuses, then he might finally shut up about Sunderland.

If not then we can only hope that deep down inside there remains a twinge of pride.
Enough, perhaps, that some wonderful morning soon he will gaze into the mirror and the thought will pop into his nogin. "Stevie-boy..you know..maybe it's time I just Shut My Big Mouth."

Sharkey's Shadow
(Our Canadian Correspondent)