Premier League legend Tony Pulis completed his UEFA A coaching badge aged just 21 after suffering a horror injury. The former Stoke City, Crystal Palace and West Brom boss coached more than 1,100 games as a manager, including 323 in the top-flight.
Early coaching path at Bristol Rovers
Pulis has revealed that he always planned to become a manager, even right at the start of his playing days at Bristol Rovers, where he gained the second-highest coaching level available during his recovery from a nightmare injury.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Star Sport, via sports betting sites, Pulis said: “I had a very, very bad injury when I was at Bristol Rovers.
“I played at Cambridge first game of the season and went to head the ball back to the goalkeeper, and landed on my ankle and I broke a couple of bones in my ankle. I snapped the tendon at the side of the ankle, did all the ligaments, and I was out for nine to 10 months.
“I played the first game of the season and played the last game of the season, hobbled around the pitch at Eastville, in an U18s game.
“So during that period, I spent my time and I was very, very well directed by people at Bristol Rovers, in respect of doing my coaching badges.
Learning from top coaches at Lilleshall
“And it was very, very fortunate Dave Burnside was the FA coach in Gloucester at the time and Dave was a fabulous fella, and he took to me and I enjoyed it and what went on from there was that because I've got my full badge, I could then go and watch Lilleshall every year, the FA ran an unbelievable course.
“It was the best course I've ever been at the courses I've ever been on and you'd have the top coaches in England, you'd have the top coaches from abroad that come to Lilleshall and there would be a week's work.
“And as a young kid, you know, 23, 24 years of age, I would not miss it. I put my application in first things, the first game of the season, my application is going for the end of the season.
“That's how keen and how much I thought it was important for me. And I did that for year after year after year.
Pragmatic approach shaped by early learning
“So, It just snowballed really. I'd always wanted to, football is a game that I've loved since I was a little boy kicking in the streets. And I never wanted to give it up, really, never wanted to do anything but play football.”
Gaining his coaching badges so early in his playing career, Pulis revealed the impact it had on his perspective as a player in the following decade of his career as he later turned out for Newport County, Bournemouth and Gillingham.
“What I did was listen in and read different things and I'm watching people work, from the top level all the way down,” he continued. “I understood that what was needed was that you look at the players you've got.
“You understand their capabilities and you play to their strengths. I think that was the greatest thing I learned from all the coaching manuals and all the coaching sessions I've watched is that if certain top coaches were working with not the best players their sessions would break down quite quickly because the players weren't good enough.
"And you mark it down and say, well, ‘I can see what he wants to do’, but the players are just not capable of doing that.
“So it was very pragmatic. It made me a very pragmatic person, which has been with me all my life.”
