Playing Career
Pulis began his career at Bristol Rovers where he joined their school of football excellence in Eastville from Newport YMCA. Pulis cites his time at Eastville as an excellent grounding with his Rovers team mate and friend Ian Holloway also making it in football management. "We learned our trade at a football club with really, really good people who had old fashioned values," I truly believe that it's because of the way we were brought up back then that we have managed to go on and achieve what we have done in the game. "The basic principles were drilled into us, both on and off the pitch. Nothing was given to us and we had to work very, very hard for everything we got."
Pulis made 85 league appearances for the 'Pirates' before leaving to join Hong Kong club Happy Valley AA in 1981. He returned to Rovers the following year and made a further 45 league appearances before moving to his home town club Newport County in 1984. At Newport Pulis became a popular member of the squad and his former County team mate David Giles believes Pulis was always destined for top-level management.
With County struggling financially Harry Redknapp subsequently signed Pulis at Bournemouth he spent three years at Dean Court before joining Gillingham in 1989. However Pulis returned to Bournemouth a year later to take up a player/coach role. He made 16 appearances, scoring one goal, while in this role.
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