If the sobriquet of ‘Dolly and Daisy’ sounds like a double act from an Old Time Musical Hall playbill, you’ll probably be surprised to learn that, thanks to their manager, it was in fact the nom de guerre of the most successful central defensive pairings of the early Premier League years. Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister were the pair in question, and they would write their names large into the history of the most successful football club of the time. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance that the pairing had on the development of Manchester United’s domestic dominance, when Sir Alex Ferguson built his dynasty of success. Suffice to say however, that the unassuming pair at the heart of the Old Trafford backline was the rock upon which the Scot relied over a seven-year partnership jammed full with trophies.

Bruce was already in place with United when Pallister was acquired in 1989. The Ramsgate born defender had travelled almost the length of the country to join Middlesbrough four years earlier and had been a key element in the team that had enjoyed successive promotions, reaching the top tier in English football at the end of the 1987-88 season. At this team, even before the club had entered the First Division, Pallister’s ability had already been recognised, having the rare distinction of pulling on the Three Lions shirt as a Second Division player. The north-east club’s tenure in the First Division would be brief however, and the following year, relegation spelt a decline in its fortunes and suggested that an approach for their valuable centre-back may well prove fruitful. Pallister’s transfer to United cost the club a then British record fee for a defender. As with so many of Ferguson’s deals however, it was a shrewd investment.

Steve Bruce had joined the club the previous year, moving from Norwich City as a promising but unproven defender, just two days short of his 27^th birthday. Other clubs had looked at taking Bruce, but into the second half of his third decade, with eight years of his career spent at Gillingham and Norwich, it looked to many as if the chance of a big move had passed him by. Ferguson’s astute judgement proved the folly of such opinions though and, once joined with Pallister, the pair formed a partnership that would become legendary under Ferguson’s reign at Old Trafford.

Up until 1996, when Bruce left for Birmingham City, he and Pallister would share no less than 800 appearances for the club, including almost 650 in the league, broadly split equally between the two. In that time, they garnered three Premiership titles – finishing as runners-up on another three occasions – enjoyed three FA Cup triumphs and a League Cup victory. They also lifted the European Cup Winners Cup, defeating Barcelona in a thrilling final as English clubs returned to continental competition following the Heysel ban. Bruce’s leadership and reliability would also make him the outstanding candidate to assume the regular captaincy of the club following the exit of Bryan Robson. In the 1993-94 season, he would become the first Englishman to captain a club to the domestic double of League title and FA Cup.

As well as medals aplenty, the pair would also receive numerous ear-bashings from the great Dane of a goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel guarding the net behind them, each time a goal was conceded, regardless of any identifiable culpability. Bruce was rumoured to have said that on one occasion Schmeichel had even sought him out after a game to criticise how a late goal had been conceded, despite the fact that Bruce had been injured and had left the field before the goal.

As well as keeping the back door locked, many defenders also see scoring goals as a more than useful adjunct to their abilities, and despite – or perhaps because of – Pallister’s apparent reticence in this department, Bruce would flourish. In his nine years at Old Trafford, Pallister would score a miserly 15 goals, averaging out at less than two per season. One of those strikes would however be in the final game of the 1992-93 season at home to Blackburn Rovers. United were winning 2-1 when they were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the visitors’ penalty area. As he was yet to open his season’s account for the club, Pallister was sent forward to take on the shot. A low-drilled effort into the net served to trouble the club’s scorekeepers for the first time in that term. At other times, some of his meagre number of strikes proved to be much more significant. His first goal for the club was as early as November 1989 in a First Division game at Old Trafford, when he scored the winner.

In the 1994-95 FA Cup Final, he scored the extra-time equaliser against Crystal Palace forcing the reply that United won in some comfort. He also netted in that game as well. Perhaps his most celebrated strikes for United fans though was the brace he scored against Liverpool at Anfield, guiding his team to a 1-3 victory in a game that many considered a deciding encounter in the race for the League title and, a few weeks later, Bruce has his hands on the Premier League trophy once more.

In comparison to Pallister, Bruce was a goal machine. In his time with the club, the Geordie-born centre-back scored no less than 51 goals. The haul included 36 in the league which, coming in just over 300 games equates to better than finding the net once in every ten games. For a defender it’s an impressive strike rate. In fact, in the 1990-91 season, Bruce scored a mightily impressive 19 times, making him the club’s second highest goalscorer – and this from a centre-back playing in a team filled with outstandingly skilful forwards.

Some may argue that a penchant for successfully delivering from twelve yards may distort his goal-scoring record somewhat, but conversely, the fact that he was selected to take penalties in such an all-star team, surely only illustrates the confidence and belief that the management had in his abilities. It’s not only the number of goals scored that make his record remarkable however, he also found the back of the net when it really mattered. On one famous occasion, Bruce scored twice in ‘Fergie Time’ at the end of a league game at Old Trafford against Sheffield Wednesday to turn the game in United’s favour. In celebration Ferguson cavorted around the edge of the pitch like a seven-year-old after being told he’s going to Disneyworld, and Brian Kidd – then the estimable Scot’s number two – threw himself on to his knees on the pitch.

With the undeniable understanding between the pair and the success that it brought on the field, it’s perhaps somewhat perplexing to consider why international recognition largely evaded them. As mentioned, Pallister did play for England, originally breaking into the national team before he had played a game in the top division, and he would go on to earn 22 caps, under Bobby Robson and latterly Graham Taylor. It seems a frugal total to say the least, but Bruce was shunned even more by the men at the helm of the Three Lions. Despite appearing in a Friendly for an England B team, he never graduated to the full side. It may well transpire to be shown that both players were merely the unlucky victims of chronological circumstance at the time. During the period of their prominence, regular centre-back partnerships for England comprised the likes of Tony Adams, Des Walker and Mark Wright, and although Pallister at time elbowed his way into the argument for places, Bruce was left on the outside looking in.

This reluctance from England encouraged Jack Charlton, then in charge of the Republic of Ireland team, to approach Bruce with a view to taking on the green shirt as his mother’s place of birth would qualify him. Despite his selection for the England B game not disqualifying him from taking up the offer however, it was later discovered that an appearance in a UEFA sanctioned tournament with an England Youth team, would have stymied any option on Charlton’s approach. Whether Bruce, as proud an Englishman as you could wish to meet however, would have pursued the matter is left purely for conjecture. Implications for Manchester United, given UEFA’s rule on restricting ‘foreign’ players at the time, may also have had a significant bearing.

Nothing lasts for ever of course, and whilst Ferguson was loyal to his players, his greater commitment was to the future success of the club, and when he thought it necessary to move things along, he would have had little hesitation in breaking up the partnership that had served him so well, delivering silverware to Old Trafford by the bucketful.

At the end of the 1994-95 season, with United missing out on the title and losing the FA Cup Final, it seemed to many that the sands of time may well be running out for Bruce at Old Trafford, and there were rumours of a number of clubs approaching him, some of which had foreseen his nascent ability to take up coaching after his playing days were done. Ferguson however wouldn’t countenance any such move, and convinced Bruce of his value at the club. The following season, Bruce made 30 appearances as United hauled in Newcastle’s 12-point lead to land the title once again. It was but a moratorium however. The joy of League success was tempered by Bruce missing the FA Cup Final with, what was regarded at the time as, only a minor injury. Despite apparently receiving further assurances from the manager, Bruce decided to accept an offer from Birmingham City and left Old Trafford.

Without his erstwhile partner, someone that Pallister had dovetailed with so efficiently over the years, it was to nobody’s great surprise that Pallister would soon be following Bruce out of the door. In the 1997-98 season, United came second to Arsenal in the league, trailing the Gunners by a single point, and thus missing out on the opportunity to secure a third successive league title. It would be Pallister’s last term with the club. In July 1998, he returned to Middlesbrough. The fee, some £2.5million was, ironically, actually a greater amount than the money Ferguson exchanged for his services nine years earlier.  Even taking into account transfer fee inflation, it was an all round sound piece of business. When he left, he was the only player to have collected medals in all of the tournament successes secured in Ferguson’s tenure.

The departure of Dolly and Daisy did little to upset Manchester United’s steady march to unqualified success in the following years, as other players picked up the baton and kept the club’s defence in the miserly fashion that Bruce and Pallister had done as the club fought its way to the front. The question remains however as to whether, when Ferguson was mounting his first attempt on the summit of English football, the club would have been as successful as it was had it not been for the partnership forged by Bruce and Pallister. Certainly, had it not been the case, the many years of success and triumph that followed may well not have occurred. With that in mind, the fans of Manchester United will truly be grateful to the pair of players that sounded like a Musical Hall act, but performed so outstandingly well in the Theatre of Dreams.

(This article was originally produced for the ‘Dulogoy’ series of These Football Times).