Chris Brunt interview: Walking away from football would be difficult

It’s been a rollercoaster journey at times, not least in the last 18 months, when Albion have had three head coaches and are currently searching for a fourth.

But Brunt has been a constant for the past 12 seasons. He has never played fewer than 25 games in a campaign. He’s only failed to make 30 appearances twice.

Although he has no intention of hanging up his boots just yet, he admits he’s started to think about what’s next, and would be open to a future in coaching.

“I have to start thinking about that sort of thing, I’m 35 this year!” he said. “I’ve got an A Licence from a few years back.

“I’ll admit I haven’t done too much coaching at all, I helped out with my lad’s under-8s team a bit.

“If you’d seen the organisation you wouldn’t be too quick to give me a job!

“I’ve been involved in professional football since I was 16. To walk away from it and not be involved in it would be difficult. That’s my life.

“I don’t know what else I would do to be totally honest. When that time comes, I’ll give a lot of thought to it.

“The club have always been good to me, if it was something they’d like to do in the future, I’d be more than open to it.

“But hopefully I’ve still got a couple of years left playing. I spoke to Steven Reid and Dean Kiely recently; they said just keep playing for as long as you can.

“You never get the same buzz coaching as you do playing on a Saturday.

“I’ll keep playing as long as I can. Whether that’s here or down the road, only time will tell.”

Brunt wants to stay at Albion for as long as he can, although he knows ultimately that we be down to the new head coach.

But even if he leaves this summer, his left foot is destined to go down in Albion folklore.

Only 16 other players have reached 400 games for the Baggies in the club’s 141-year history – a landmark Brunt reached last month.

However, the milestone turned into a nightmare when he miskicked a ball that led to a Middlesbrough winner.

“It’s something I’ll look back on when I finish and will be proud of,” he said. “But I won’t remember my 400th game too well!

“Not after falling over and giving a win to Tony (Pulis) and Middlesbrough. That was probably one of my lower points in my 400 games to be fair.

“In my 300th game I made a mistake at Old Trafford and someone scored too.

“Maybe it’s best just to leave me out of the milestone games and bring me on at the end just to tick the box.

“It’s something when I signed here in 2007 you never think of. To be part of a reasonably successful period, it’s something I’m proud of.

“Hopefully in the future if I come back to do bits and pieces, coaching, media work, I’ll be welcome back. Not everyone is always welcomed back, but hopefully I will be!”

Brunt has played under nine separate head coaches at The Hawthorns and has been regularly picked by pretty much all of them.

Darren Moore gave him the captain’s armband and started him at the base of midfield this season.

Brunt admitted there was a feeling of sadness that it hadn’t worked out with the former Baggies defender.

“He’s Darren Moore isn’t he? He’s just a good guy, he’s accommodating with everybody,” said Brunt.

“He spends as much time with Premier League footballers as he does the cleaning staff.

“It is sad that he’s gone, but at the end of the day it’s a results-based business.

“The football club needs to be back in the Premier League. Board members are paid to make decisions like that.”

Brunt admitted the players also needed to take responsibility for inadequate results this season, but disputed the notion they had let Moore down.

“Every performance, when you come off the pitch you think ‘Have I done the best I could?’,” he said.

“Obviously implementing new bits and pieces this year hasn’t been as easy as we wanted it to be.

"Losing Harvey Barnes had a big effect, he was different class for the first few months of the season.

“You can’t say people have let him (Moore) down, everybody tried their best for him every day.

“I think it’s a combination of a lot of things, since the turn of the year it hasn’t worked out.”

Albion have two wins and two clean sheets since Moore’s sacking after caretaker boss James Shan returned to a more pragmatic style.

Brunt was reinstated into the line-up and put in an inspired performance against Swansea City, scoring one and setting up another from the base of midfield.

Those were important victories, because it leaves the Baggies 10 points clear of seventh, and keeps alive their slim hopes of a top-two finish.

“We’re more than capable of going on a run of games, and you just never know, the pressure builds on those ahead of you,” said Brunt.

“It’s a relentless league. We’ve got a lot of players who have played Premier League football over the past few years, maybe that’s a factor as well.

"Three wins in a row this season isn’t good enough, we’re more than capable of winning six, seven, eight in a row.”

For many Albion fans, Chris Brunt is synonymous with team-mate James Morrison. Having joined seven days apart from each other in the summer of 2007, they remain two constants at the club.

Many supporters were hoping for a testimonial once they reached 10 years of service, but Brunt admitted it would be difficult to organise.

“We’d love to do something if we could but I don’t think it’s as easy to knock out a testimonial now,” said Brunt. “There’s a lot more ins and outs now to be honest I don’t really understand.

“There are issues around tax, there has to be a committee. It’s not as easy as it used to be."

There will, however, be a special dinner at The Hawthorns on Wednesday May 1 organised by the official supporters' club to pay tribute to both players.

"John Homer (chairman) and Alan Cleverley (secretary) have put a lot of effort in to arrange that," said Brunt. "It’s nice of them to do that because they didn’t have to.

“No matter what happens in the summer, the two of us have thoroughly enjoyed our time here.

“Hopefully this season we get promoted. I don’t think too many people could say they’ve been promoted three times with the same club, that’d be nice.”