Tony Pulis says football management can take a real toll on body and mind, and that managers need a routine that protects them as much as the team. In his BBC column, the former Bournemouth manager says, "In the early days, my management of myself was really poor". He traces the shift back to his first job at Bournemouth in 1992.
Bournemouth, 1992 and the turning point
Pulis says the turning point came in 1994, after speaking to an Australian triathlete just before he left Bournemouth. By 1999, when he was at Gillingham, he had decided to run the London Marathon for the first time. He also says the stress of the job affected his sleep and that he often avoided reading press coverage about himself or his team.
Routine as an outlet
The routine he built around fitness became part of how he coped. "A release valve that was an important part of my routine," he says of exercise, and he describes charity challenges as part of that approach too. He says his first was the marathon, then came cycling from John O' Groats to Land's End, walking up Mount Kilimanjaro, and rowing from Tower Bridge to the Eiffel Tower.
He also says that, early in his career, he and his staff were often fuelled by motorway food while travelling to watch players. The point is not that one run or one event fixed the demands of management. It is that Pulis believes the job is hard enough that managers have to build habits which keep them steady. Bournemouth, meanwhile, have won their last 5 matches across all competitions and sit 13th in the Premier League, with 9 points from 3 matches in their UEFA Europa League group.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
