TONY PULIS

'Anthony Richard "Tony" Pulis' (born January 16, 1958 in Newport) is a Welsh former football player and is currently the manager of Stoke City. Pulis confirmed as Stoke manager Pulis obtained his FA coaching badge at the age of 19, followed by his UEFA 'A' licence aged 21 - making him one of the youngest professional players ever to have obtained the qualification.
Pulis took his first steps into management at Bounemouth, where he was a player/coach and then Harry Redknapp's assistant. He then took control when Redknapp left the club. His most signficant achievement to date was guiding Gillingham to second place in the Third Division which led to promotion.
Pulis has a reputation within the game for achieving solid results on small budgets and also maintains the proud record of never being relegated as a manager. He is sometimes criticised for using an overly negative and direct style of play, however Pulis has defended his approach.^[1] Some refer to this approach as 'binary football'.

Contents

Managerial Career

Bournemouth

Gillingham

Bristol City

Portsmouth

Stoke City

Plymouth Argyle

Second spell at Stoke City

Managerial stats

References

External links

Managerial Career

Bournemouth

Pulis finished his playing career at Bournemouth F.C., where he assumed a player/coach role. He made 16 appearances, scoring one goal, while in this role. He was promoted to the position of manager in 1992, following Harry Redknapp's decision to leave the club for Premier League side West Ham United. Pulis spent two seasons (1992-93 and 1993-94) at Bournemouth, before moving on.

Gillingham

He then moved to Gillingham, whom he managed for a further four seasons, turning a team that had struggled at the very bottom of the Football League into a promotion winning one in his first season, and laying the foundations for the club's eventual elevation to the First Division for the first time in their history. In the 1999 Division Two play-off final the Gills were 2–0 up with less than two minutes left, following goals by the prolific partnership of Robert Taylor and Carl Asaba, only to see Manchester City score twice, the equaliser in injury time, and after that win a penalty shoot-out 3–1.^[2] Following the defeat, Pulis was controversially sacked by the club amidst claims of gross misconduct. Who is Tony Pulis? He later brought a £400,000 court case against Gillingham for unpaid bonuses,^[3] which was settled out of court in 2001 for £75,000.^[4]

Bristol City

Pulis was appointed manager of Bristol City in July 1999, prior to the start of the 1999-2000 season.^[5][6] However, he was only in the job for 6 months, before moving on to Portsmouth, where Milan Mandarić had recently taken over as chairman.

Portsmouth

In January 2000, he left Bristol City to become manager of Portsmouth.^[7][8] Unfortunately he was not a success at Fratton Park, lasting only 10 months in the job before being replaced by Steve Claridge in October 2000.^[9][10]

Stoke City

He was then out of work for two years, before the resignation of Stoke's manager Steve Cotterill early into the 2002-03 season led to Pulis being given the job that November.^[11] Pulis immediately found himself in a relegation battle and it looked likely that the club would be relegated back to Division One, only a year after being promoted. However, Pulis completed the signings of striker Ade Akinbiyi^[12] and goalkeeper Mark Crossley,^[13] on loan from Leicester City and Middlesbrough respectively, who helped turn around the club's bad run. Stoke avoided relegation on the final day of the 2002-03 season with a 1-0 win over Reading at the Britannia Stadium, with Akinbiyi scoring the only goal of the game.^[14] In the following season, 2003-04 , Pulis guided the club to an 11th place finish.^[15]
Tensions grew between the manager and chairmain, Gunnar Gislason, in the 2004-05 season. Pulis was frustrated with his lack of transfer funds which led to Dave Brammer and Steve Simonsen, both of whom were free agents, being his only significant signings prior to the start of the season. However, Pulis did add Anthony Pulis, his son, and Lewis Buxton to his squad in January 2005.^[16][17] The disagreement between Pulis and the club's Icelandic ownership culminated with Pulis parting company with the club on June 28 2005. He was sacked for "failing to exploit the foreign transfer market" by then Stoke chairman Gislason.^[18] Following his dismissal, Pulis bemoaned the club's decision to sell Ade Akinbiyi to Championship rivals Burnley, stating: "We sold our top scorer and never replaced him."^[19] Dutch manager Johan Boskamp was named as Pulis' successor on 29 June 2005, only a day after Pulis was sacked.^[20]

Plymouth Argyle

After taking over as manager at Championship side Plymouth Argyle,^[21] Pulis managed to turn around a floundering team, to one that with the right investment could challenge for a top half/play off place in 2006-07. The turn-around coincided with the loan of West Ham United central defender Elliott Ward^[22] and the club improved even further with the permanent signing of Lilian Nalis from Sheffield United F.C.^[23] Plymouth Argyle ended the season 14th in the Championship table.^[24]

Second spell at Stoke City

In May 2006 he was the subject of an approach from former club Stoke,^[25] who had recently parted company with manager Johan Boskamp, following Peter Coates' takeover of the club. Plymouth reportedly turned down this approach.^[26] However, on June 14, 2006 it was announced that Pulis would indeed be returning as manager of Stoke City.
Pulis bolstered his squad for the 2006-07 with the permanent additions of Danny Higginbotham,^[27] Ricardo Fuller^[28] and Vincent Pericard.^[29] His most notable coup was the loan signing of Lee Hendrie from Aston Villa.^[30][31] Hendrie's arrival (along with the loan signings of Salif Diao,^[32] Andy Griffin^[33] and Rory Delap^[34]) coincided with a change of form for the Potters following a poor start to the a season.^[35] Stoke went as high as 4th in the table prior to the January transfer window.^[36]
Pulis was named 'manager of the month' for April 2007, after Stoke picked up eleven points from five league games.^[37] This unbeaten run lifted Stoke to 7th in the table, on equal points with sixth-place Southampton.^[38] However, a 1-1 draw against QPR on the final day of the season^[39] led to Stoke finishing 8th in the Championship.^[40]

Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Bournemouth		June 9 1992	August 5 1994	107	31	38	38	28.97
Gillingham		July 31 1995	July 1 1999	216	94	60	62	43.51
Bristol City		July 5 1999	January 14 2000	33	10	9	14	30.30
Portsmouth		January 13 2000	October 12 2000	35	11	14	10	31.42
Stoke City		November 1 2002	June 28 2005	131	47	52	32	35.87
Plymouth Argyle		September 23 2005	June 14 2006	39	12	12	15	30.76
Stoke City		June 15 2006	''Present''	53	22	14	17	41.50

References

1. Pulis stands by management style
2.
3. Pulis given Pompey 'leave'
4. End of ills for Gills
5. POTTED HISTORY
6. PAST MANAGERS
7. Portsmouth FC history
8. The Mandaric Years
9. Pulis will fight misconduct charge
10. Pulis sacked by Pompey
11. The right man for Stoke?
12. Stoke pin hopes on Akinbiyi
13. 1 Mark Crossley
14. Akinbiyi keeps Stoke up
15.
16. Transfers - December 2004
17. Stoke swoop for young Pompey duo
18. Manager Pulis is sacked by Stoke
19. Pulis not surprised by dismissal
20. Boskamp named as new Stoke boss
21. Pulis confirmed as Plymouth boss
22. Transfers - November 2005
23. Nalis completes Home Park switch
24. Championship table 05/06
25. Pulis in talks over Stoke return
26. Stoke rebuffed in Pulis approach
27. Stoke joy at Higginbotham signing
28. Stoke capture Southampton striker
29. Striker Pericard signs for Stoke
30. Stoke complete Hendrie loan deal
31. Pulis hails Hendrie performance
32. Diao completes Stoke loan switch
33. Potters extend Griffin loan deal
34. Stoke sign Sunderland man on loan
35. Championship league table
36. Championship league table
37. Pulis receives Championship award
38. Coca-Cola Football League Championship - Updated 28/04/2007
39. QPR 1-1 Stoke
40. Coca-Cola Football League Championship - Updated 13/05/2007

External links

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