Sunderland boss Steve Bruce says rejection as a teenager by Burnley was the making of him.

He recalled: "I was playing with Wallsend Boys Club and one of the Burnley scouts came and took me down there.

"I used to clean the changing rooms, so if there are any dirty marks there, they're nothing to do with me. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. I was on schoolboy forms but wasn't offered terms and I was devastated.

"Amazingly, the manager at the time, Joe Brown, went on to become the chief scout at Man United. Even more amazingly, he didn't recognise the little skinny kid from the North-East he had let go, although I did remind him. I had a job lined up in the shipyards at Swan Hunters. I went in for a week's work experience and my cousin had got me a job to be an apprentice plumber.

"I was about to start when Peter Kirkley, who had taken me to Burnley and who still runs Wallsend Boys Club, then took me to Gillingham. They took me on. But the sense of rejection before that has always stayed with me. The kids here are ruined. They've got the best of pitches and don't do any jobs.

"They have the best food, the best of everything. And if you're not careful, it can create the other side, where they think they've made it before they have. Sometimes, that can be a bit of a problem. To get better as a club, you have to have the better facilities and that's been proved often enough. But you also have to have a grounding."