Bryan Gunn

Scottish association football player and manager

the similarly named former [[Defender (association football)

The Gunn family home in Thurso was a farm, and the young Bryan would often pester the farmhands to play football with him. They would use a turnip if no ball was available. By the age of four he was keen on goalkeeping; he was fearless of injury and enjoyed diving on the ball. When Bryan was four and a half, the family moved to Invergordon, 20 miles from Inverness. He attended Park Primary School in the town and joined the school football team. Future professional Bobby Geddes was favoured over him as first choice goalkeeper for the team; Gunn played as an outfield player until Geddes moved on to secondary school. Gunn attended secondary school at Invergordon Academy from 1975 to 1980, and gained O Grades in a variety of subjects, including English, maths, history and chemistry. He failed his French exam after taking it while "on the road" with Scotland under 15s. At the age of 13, he was invited to play for the under 15 Invergordon F. C. team by one of his school teachers, who managed the team. The team was beaten 9–0 in Gunn's debut, but his subsequent performances attracted the attention of national selectors, and he joined the Scotland under 15 squad around the same time he signed for Aberdeen at age 14.

Gunn commenced his professional career with Aberdeen in 1980, (signing a week prior to Eric Black who came from the same part of the country) and forged a good relationship with then Aberdeen manager Alex Ferguson—evidenced by the fact that in 1997 Ferguson brought Manchester United to Carrow Road for Gunn's testimonial match. He later said, "I probably babysat more than I played". Gunn settled into playing in goal. He made his debut against Hibernian at Pittodrie on 30 October 1982, Despite being rivals for a first team place, Gunn had an excellent relationship with Leighton that included joining Leighton's family for a meal once a week. and the SFL Reserve Cup in 1984–85 At senior level, he also received Scottish League Cup and European Cup Winners Cup As well as making several key saves, he was credited with playing a part in Aberdeen's second goal following a long kick upfield. The transfer nearly went through in the summer of 1986, but Ferguson delayed the move until October to allow time for Leighton to recover from an injury.

Gunn says of the move south: "Norwich was easy to settle into, a bit like Aberdeen in many ways—a city surrounded by lovely countryside and lots of farms." Ken Brown wanted to be fair to Benstead and made Gunn wait. A 6–2 defeat at Anfield proved to be the catalyst for Gunn's promotion to the first team. He made his debut in a Full Members Cup win against Coventry City, conceding a penalty, and made his league debut in a 2–1 victory against Tottenham Hotspur at Carrow Road on 8 November 1986. Norwich went on to finish fifth in the First Division in his first season, their highest ever league finish at the time. The purpose of the proposed transfer was to replace Leighton, who by then had moved to Manchester United, where he was reunited with Alex Ferguson. Gunn made several saves that kept the Canaries in the match. He describes the save he made from Bayern striker Adolfo Valencia as the finest of his career; However, he was involved in an own goal incident in an East Anglian derby match in the 1995–96 season, when a backpass from Robert Ullathorne bounced awkwardly off the pitch and over Gunn's attempted clearance kick. and had a clean sheet at Celtic Park (stopping them from winning the SPL that day)." In 1983, Gunn travelled with the Scotland Under 19s to Mexico for the 1983 FIFA World Youth Championship. Gunn played in all four of Scotland's matches and it was a formative experience, as he faced a variety of challenges in the tournament. The adidas ball in use "really zipped through the air", which encouraged long range shots at the high altitude. In the first match, against South Korea, an element of the 26,000 crowd "clearly didn't like us at all I got absolutely pelted with coins and rotten fruit". The final insult was when he was hit on the back of the neck by a rancid smelling plastic bag containing rotten fish. Gunn found it "intimidation a nightmare" but adopted the strategy of patrolling the edge of his area to stay out of range and had "one of the best games of my life": he kept a clean sheet as Scotland won 2–0. although Gunn believes the true figure was over 100,000. Once more, Gunn was targeted with a variety of missiles, including a bottle of Johnnie Walker, but as Scotland held on to their early 1–0 lead, the fans became disillusioned with their own team and switched to sending a "hail of bottles and coins" on the Mexican players. Scotland lost 1–0 in the quarter final against Poland. Gunn made six full international appearances for Scotland, conceding 10 goals. He was a member of the squad for the 1990 FIFA World Cup, but played in none of Scotland's three matches at the tournament, He made his Scotland debut in a pre tournament friendly match against Egypt, but was at fault for two Egyptian goals, resulting in a 3–1 defeat for Scotland. The embarrassment was made worse by the fact that his parents were watching. Gunn made four appearances for Scotland in 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification matches. After his retirement from playing professional football in 1999,

Over the years, Gunn progressed from hospitality into other corporate positions at Norwich; he acted as sponsorship manager from 1999 to 2006. Manager Peter Grant moved Gunn to the "backroom" sports management side of the business in 2007. Gunn worked in a liaison role in negotiations of possible transfers and loan signings, tasks where he could make use of contacts gained during his playing career. Later in the season, Gunn was promoted to head of player recruitment, while retaining his goalkeeping coach role.