Goal machine relishes meeting of his old clubs

So far, 26.5million has been spent on bringing new players to the Stadium of Light, ten in all with four arriving over the course of as many days, Bruce determined to improve on a tenth-place finish which, if respectable, still saw his side win just three of their final 14 matches.

Injuries stretched Bruce's resources virtually to breaking point and he's hit the transfer market with a vengeance, reinvesting the 16 million pulled in by the sale of Jordan Henderson to Liverpool - and then some.

He went back to his old club United to snatch seasoned defenders John O'Shea and Wes Brown for a reputed 6m, similar sums being spent to secure the transfers of Craig Gardner and Stephane Sessegnon from Birmingham City and Paris St Germain respectively while 8m, potentially rising to 12m, went on Ipswich striker Connor Wickham.

South Korean Ji Dong-Won and Egypt's Ahmed Elhohamady, by comparison, look bargain basement buys at 2m apiece while Sebastian Larsson and goalkeeper Kieron Westwood arrived on frees from Birmingham and Coventry City respectively. All this, don't forget, from a club which in the past didn't blink at forking out 9m for Hearts goalkeeper Craig Gordon and an eye-watering 13m to French club Rennes to win the services of Ghanaian star Asamoah Gyan although, of course, the sale of Darren Bent to Aston Villa has gone some way to offsetting the hefty spending.

Even so, Bruce will be hard pushed to match the deal which took Hibs striker Neil Martin to Sunderland's former home at Roker Park 46 years ago. The English club paid a princely 45,000 for the free-scoring Martin, the fee representing excellent pound for pound value in comparison to today's inflated market. Martin had already scored more than 100 goals in Scotland when he moved south, becoming the first player to claim a "ton" on either side of the border.

His record leaves Martin, now back living in his hometown of Tranent only minutes from Hibs' new training centre at East Mains, perfectly placed to comment on tomorrow's friendly between his two old clubs, one which looks heavily weighted in Sunderland's favour if only because of their spending power.

Martin, however, refuses to buy into that standpoint. "I think it will be a good game," said the man who will be guest of honour at Easter Road, "Sunderland have spent a lot of money while, as everyone knows, Hibs have, in the main, a youngish squad.But it doesn't always work out that way, if you have a group of young, enthusiastic boys putting them under pressure and not allowing them to settle then it's amazing just how the game can level out. Steve Bruce got good money for Henderson and Bent and has gone out and bought a few, so it will be interesting to see how they fit in, they don't always gel right away."

Settling in at a new club was something Martin - who jokes the only "foreigners" he had as team-mates at Easter Road were those who hailed from Glasgow - never struggled to do, revealing he scored on his debut at each of his clubs except Coventry City. That lapse, though, was quickly put right as Martin explains: "I got a hat-trick next match up away to Sheffield Wednesday and a couple on my home debut so that made up for it. I could never understand people saying it takes five or six matches to settle in. I never found that myself, you are playing the same game and it does not matter who is crossing the ball, you have to get on the end of it."

Martin's willingness to do so earned him more than a few bust noses and split eyes, 25 goals for Alloa and 33 more for Queen of the South earning him a 7000 move to Hibs where, in just 65 matches the fearless inside left found the net 53 times, the first in a 1-1 draw at St Mirren on his debut. He said: "We had some fantastic players at Hibs, guys like Willie Hamilton, Peter Cormack, Eric Stevenson, Pat Quinn and Jim Scott, while Pat Stanton and Jimmy O'Rourke were youngsters coming through.

"Then down at Sunderland there was the likes of Jim Baxter. There were so many goalscorers in those days, players like Jimmy Greaves and Denis Law were around when I was at Sunderland so even when I scored 27 goals in a season I was only fifth top goalscorer.

"Rangers had Jim Forrest and Jimmy Millar, at Easter Road there was Joe Baker before me and Lawrie Reilly before him. We had wingers, though, Eric Stevenson and Jim Scott at Hibs, Jimmy Johnstone and Bobby Lennox at Celtic, Willie Henderson at Rangers, players who could get past the opposition and get crosses in.

"When I was a kid in Tranent there were three football pitches, you had to be there by nine o'clock on a Sunday morning to get a game. We played all day and ended up 22-a-side. You dribbled with the ball until someone took it off you, now you hardly see one kid on those pitches, they are all too busy playing computer games."

With 111 goals to his name in Scotland, Martin soon repeated the feat in England, 38 with Sunderland, 40 more at Coventry, 28 with Nottingham Forest and nine as his career tailed off at Brighton and Crystal Palace, to give him a place in history which, wrongly, is often attributed to Kenny Dalglish.

That Dalglish should be credited by many as the first to score 100 in both Scotland and England rather than himself doesn't overly concern Martin, who believes the fact he played for Celtic and Liverpool results in the error being made.