Walter Bruce

Who is Walter Bruce?

Walter Bruce was a Northern Irish footballer who played in the Irish League as an inside forward with Glentoran. He won two caps for Northern Ireland and eight inter-league caps for the Irish League.

With Glentoran, he won the Irish League championship on four occasions in 1963–64, 1966–67, 1967–68 and 1969–70. He won one Irish Cup, two Gold Cups, three City Cups and one Ulster Cup. He was named Ulster Footballer of the Year for the 1966–67 season.

Bruce joined Glentoran as a sixteen-year-old in 1954, breaking into the first team towards the end of the 1955–56 season. In 1959, Bruce’s 19 goals earned him the Glentoran Player of the Year title; and the following year he won his first cap in a 5–2 Home Nations Championship defeat by Scotland. In 1967, he captained Glentoran to the League title, also taking home City Cup, Gold Cup and Ulster Cup winner’s medals, was crowned Ulster Footballer of the Year, and six-and-a-half years after first being capped, made the Northern Ireland team again for a 0–0 European Nations Cup qualifier with Wales. The only blip on the season was an Irish Cup final defeat, this time at the hands of Crusaders.

The summer of 1967 found the Glentoran squad travelling to North America, playing for Detroit Cougars in the inaugural United Soccer Association season.