Tony Pulis was sacked by Bournemouth in 1994 and, by his own account, was on the sofa for just two days before Jim Smith ordered him to “get your backside off the sofa and get on with getting another job”. Thirty-two years on, Pulis has passed that message to a new generation of unemployed managers, and backed it with lessons drawn from Napoleon Bonaparte, the Charge of the Light Brigade and Ernest Shackleton.
Writing in his BBC Sport column, told to Chris Bevan and published on Friday, the former Stoke, Crystal Palace and West Brom manager pointed to a stark figure as the November international break opens what he calls “sacking season”. Since the start of last season, 60 managers have resigned or been sacked in the Premier League and Football League. Of those, 37, or 62%, are not currently in management.
From the terraces to Gillingham
Smith, then in charge of Portsmouth, told him: “Son, you’re not a real manager until you get sacked at least three times.” The practical help came from Bruce Rioch. In the summer of 1994 the then Bolton manager asked Pulis to scout for him, and the work taught him the value of “knowing the level you were at”.
That lesson paid off at Gillingham, a club Pulis describes as having “just finished 89th out of the 92 clubs across the top four divisions” when he took over. He rebuilt the squad using players he had watched while scouting, and the club finished second in what is now League Two to win promotion in his first season.
“You have to start by getting the right players for the level you are at,” he wrote.
Between jobs, Pulis kept going to matches, often standing among supporters to assess potential signings. “Lots of games I went to were watched from the terraces with either home or away supporters, which was always interesting and illuminating,” he wrote. He also spent spells coaching in Kuwait and the United States at the invitation of friends in the game, and visited Bayer Leverkusen, Athletic Bilbao and RB Leipzig, the last of them only then beginning their climb through German football.
Napoleon, Raglan and Shackleton
The more unusual part of his education came from history books. Pulis travelled to Corsica in the summer of 2019 for the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of Napoleon’s birth, and he admires the emperor’s organisation as much as his battlefield record.
“His attention to detail and his command of his generals was only superseded by his troop’s loyalty to him,” he wrote, adding that “they would literally die for him!”
He studied Napoleon’s defeats too, on the grounds that “they are as much a part of football management as victories, after all”.
A trip to Crimea supplied the counter-example. At Balaclava in October 1854, Lord Raglan’s instruction to the Light Brigade became garbled as it passed down the chain of command, and the cavalry charged into Russian guns. “His order to attack was ambiguous,” Pulis wrote, concluding: “Leadership and communication from the top was key.”
His third case study ended in survival rather than glory. Shackleton’s Endurance was crushed by Antarctic ice in 1915, yet all 28 men aboard survived. Pulis credits both Shackleton and Frank Worsley, the ship’s captain, whose navigation of a small lifeboat to South Georgia made the rescue possible. Shackleton’s “leadership of his men, along with his number two Frank Worsley, was extraordinary”, he wrote.
What it means for the unemployed
The historical references are colourful, but the argument underneath is a practical one. Pulis’s central claim is that it is “better to get a job, any job, than be out of football full-stop”, even if that means dropping a level. His own career supports the case: the route from a Bournemouth sacking to a scouting role and a promotion at Gillingham eventually led to the Premier League, where he took Stoke up in 2008 and was named League Managers Association Manager of the Year at Palace in 2014.
The figures show how hard that advice is to follow. With 37 of the last 60 departed managers still out of work, experienced coaches outnumber the available dugouts. Pulis himself has not managed since a 45-day spell at Sheffield Wednesday in 2020.
The timing gives his words a current audience. West Ham sacked Nuno Espirito Santo on 3 November with the club eighth in the Championship, and more managers could join him during the break.
For those on the receiving end, Pulis’s message has barely changed since Smith’s phone call. “Pick yourselves up and get off the sofa to get back in work as quickly as possible,” he wrote.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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