'They're my team' Wes Brown's enduring Sunderland love and easy call to leave Man Utd

Former Sunderland defender Wes Brown claims he could have stayed at Manchester United but a desire to play football lead to him signing for Steve Bruce's Black Cats. The England international penned a four-year deal with the Wearsiders in July 2011.

Despite injury problems throughout his career, the arrival of Brown and John O'Shea at the Stadium of Light was seen as quite the coup for Bruce, who had guided Sunderland to a top half finish the season prior. Brown made quite the impact, winning man-of-the-match on his Black Cats debut - a 1-1 draw with Liverpool. However, injury problems would plague his career on Wearside, a knee injury which he sustained later that season in an FA Cup clash with Middlesbrough ruled him out for well over a year.

ChronicleLive spoke with the former England defender at the BT Hope United x Cybersmile event at North Shields FC, a programme run in conjunction with The FA to promote a new portal designed to tackle online hate.

"To be fair I could have stayed at Manchester United but I had a good chat with Sir Alex Ferguson and I wasn't going to play as much," Brown said. "We'd just bought Chris Smalling and we had Rafael and Fabio, the twins, who were going to make more appearances.

"He [Sir Alex] said 'Listen you can stay, but you probably won't play as much.' It just got to the point where it was hard leaving but I wanted to play. The was a connection with Steve Bruce [at Sunderland], and there were a few other United players there.

"Me and John O'Shea got the call to say he wanted us to join and it was pretty easy after that if I'm being quite honest. As you know, my time there - probably not the first season - was very difficult, but it was a great experience I do have to say.

"I was