Copy and paste it mate because it's behind a paywall.
Part of it was in the sentinel the other day
It is a sunny September afternoon and Tony Pulis finds himself in an unusual position; the football season has already started and he has not been patrolling a technical area in his trademark baseball cap and famous ice-white trainers.
Pulis has taken charge of 1127 games, stretching back to 1992, so this is a rare break as he reflects over lunch in a Soho restaurant on a variety of subjects including video assistant referees, Michael Owen, Brexit and social media.
After leaving Middlesbrough in May he is enjoying the free time with his family, but you get the distinct impression Pulis is clearly waiting for the right time to re-enter the madhouse of management.
“When the season starts you’re looking at things you’d be doing and you do miss the crazy existence us managers have,” he says.
“Pre-season you always get pangs because you know the lads are back and you want to be involved in it. It’s a life that has obviously extended far beyond my imagination.
“It’s the first break I’ve had for a while and I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve had time at home, a couple of family holidays and I’ve seen Ant [his son, who is establishing a fine reputation as the head coach of St. Louis FC in the second tier of American soccer] out in the US with the children.
“You do miss it, but I won’t be diving straight back in.”
There have been opportunities, so far resisted. “I had an offer to go and manage in China shortly after I left Boro but that was far too quick for me to get back in. I’ve been asked if I’d be interested in taking over national teams.
“I’ve also had one or two approaches in the Championship but I felt they were too soon. Middlesbrough took a lot out of me, it was enjoyable but draining. It needs to be the right opportunity.”
Pulis had 18 months on Teesside, working under budget restrictions as chairman Steve Gibson moved to lower costs following Boro’s failure to make a quick return to the Premier League.
In the 68 Championship games Pulis managed, Boro spent 49 of them in the top six, but he left shortly after missing out on the play-offs by one point last season.
“The people who matter know the job I did,” he says. “Steve is a fantastic man - I went to his wedding this summer - and he laid an enormous amount of money out to get the club promoted and trusted the manager before me to do it. And it didn’t work.
“In football if you don’t spend the money well enough it comes back to bite you, over not one season but two or three!
“There was a turnover of 32 players and we brought in over £50 million [through the sales of Adama Traore, Ben Gibson, Patrick Bamford, Adam Forshaw and Cyrus Christie], and it was tough.
"You’ve seen the situations at Bury and Bolton, people have to understand that clubs have to be run in a proper manner. If you look at the Championship clubs over the last two seasons, and take Boro and Swansea as examples, both clubs have had to cut their cloths accordingly after relegation and sold players for big money which has left them with smaller squads but tighter-knit groups."
Tony Pulis adjusts his glasses in the dugout during a Middlesbrough match - Exclusive Tony Pulis interview: 'I am enjoying my time off but I have been approached to return to management'
61-year-old Pulis rejects the notion that he is too old for modern football.
Pulis will be 62 in January and bristles at the notion that modern football could be moving away from the veteran manager. Those jibes about being a "dinosaur” playing prehistoric football have been thrown his way for some time.
"I actually enjoy living in Jurassic Park! We push experience aside and forget about people far too quickly. People mark you down as a person who’s been in it too long and taken too many punches,” he says.
“Age is just a number. For 18 months at Boro I was the first one in at training and one of the last out. I look at people like Manuel Pellegrini and Marcelo Bielsa and think they all have something to offer.”
Pulis still does, too. He remains an influence to the modern manager, speaking to Sheffield United’s Chris Wilder and Brighton's Graham Potter last month as they prepared for their first seasons in the top-flight.
At weekends he is filling the time on match-days by working for BBC radio, something he enjoys, and he is still a familiar face in football: at our meeting in London this week he was stopped outside a hotel by a young Stoke fan who politely asked “are you Tony Pulis?” before thanking him for the memories.
Though he has since managed at Crystal Palace - where he was named Premier League manager of the year in 2014 - West Brom and Boro, it is those stirring days in the Potteries over his second spell where his reputation rose.
He reels off many of the astute signings he made, such as Peter Crouch, Jon Walters and Ryan Shawcross. Ask him about his best ever buy in management and he is unequivocal. “Ricardo Fuller. We signed him for £300,000 from Portsmouth and he was unplayable at times. He was also a bloody nightmare! He was the master at getting fined."
Pulis also had "tearaways and scallywags", many of which he rehabilitated, and fond memories of big characters such as Michael Duberry, John Eustace and Gerry Taggart.
He recalls: "'Taggs' once asked me for a day off on Monday and came back on the Thursday. I wasn't very happy with him but we had a huge game on the Saturday. I was still fuming but I'll always remember what my old kit man at Bournemouth said: "always pick your best team'.
"I picked 'Taggs' and he was the best player by a country mile. After the game we went into the boardroom and one of the Icelandic owners at the time said "that Taggart, he is a lucky player. Every time the ball goes in the air it lands on his head". Me and 'Kempy' [Dave Kemp] nearly burst out laughing: 'Kempy' said he's been lucky for 30 years then!"
There have also been huge disappointments during his career: Saido Berahino spent most of his final 18 months at West Brom “on the naughty step” but Pulis still reflects sadly on a talent unfulfilled.
“Saido was going to play for England, he was outstanding in that season at West Brom and we’d probably have gone down without his goals. When he didn’t get the move to Spurs [in August 2015] he was never the same again. It really affected him. All the people around him didn’t take responsibility to look after him. I went to his house and met his mum one night to try and turn it all around. But he never had that glint in his eye again.”
And there was also Michael Owen, who spent his final season as a professional under Pulis at Stoke. He made just eight substitute appearances after signing on a free transfer from Manchester United in 2012.
“Michael joined us and I never, ever felt his head was on it at any stage while he was at Stoke City,” he says.
“He had a boot deal that lasted an extra year in the Premier League when he signed for Stoke which meant we hardly paid him a penny. Looking back, he never had his mind in the right place.
"There was also Dave Kitson, who was arrogantly average and didn't last long in a very tight-knit dressing room."
For Pulis, the journey from those schoolboy days in Newport is far from over. The football sacking season usually starts next month and his reputation as a Red Adair of management will inevitably see him linked to another firefighting job.
Surely we haven’t seen the last of that baseball cap, just yet.
