Bruce reveals Sir Alex's house visit

The centre-back took over the armband when Bryan Robson was no longer a regular in the side and, ultimately, left to join Middlesbrough in 1994. The popular defender did a magnificent job in leading the club but he had to gain a final seal of approval from the manager before the decision was made.

In an enlightening episode of the UTD Podcast - which will be available to watch and listen to from 17:00 BST on Tuesday - Bruce shares a rarely told story about how Sir Alex dropped in on him and his wife, with the ulterior motive of sounding out the private life of the family man.

"Listen, I would always be grateful to him for giving me the opportunity and signing me and, obviously, to be then made captain when Bryan left, I completely had his trust and faith," declared Bruce, during the extensive chat about his lengthy career in the game.

"But I remember, and I haven’t revealed this many times, I remember getting a phone call from him to say: 'Can I come round and see you?'  That’s a bit strange. He says: 'I’m in the area' and I lived in Bramhall, and he was in Wilmslow, which is quite a way. He says: 'I’m in the area'. I didn’t think he was.

"He says: 'Can I come and see you?' I say, Yeah, of course. He says: 'I’ll be at your house in 20 minutes'. Of course, blooming heck, what’s going on here? So I say to Jan, the gaffer’s coming so, we only had two little ones at the time. Right enough, 20 minutes up he pulls and, of course, we get the best cups and saucers out and the cup of tea. He comes down and sits down, has a little look around and sort of, not examines the place but was checking over that we were okay.

"Then, out of the blue," continued Bruce. "After the cup of tea, he says: 'I want you to be the new captain of Man United. How do you feel?'

"I say, how do I feel? Absolutely delighted! 'Okay, great, thank you very much' and off he went. And I thought, why didn’t he wait, why didn’t he wait until the next morning to pull me in his office to tell me? Or was he checking where I was living, what I was up to?

"And what’s the standards. And I believe, to this day, he did. That he came round to say I’m going to have a look at the way this fella lives and the way his family lives before I give him the captaincy. Now, I’ve never asked the question of really why. I daren’t but that’s my thoughts on it anyway."

Steve Bruce's UTD Podcast will be available to watch and listen to from 17:00 BST on Tuesday 9 May, across our official platforms.