It is after midnight at the end of a long drive to his stunning home on the south coast but Tony Pulis is not budging. We ride at seven. Alarm call at 6.30am.

After what feels like little more than five minutes, there is a tap at the bedroom door. It’s already time to rise, if not necessarily to shine.

With a quick peek out of the window and into the morning sunshine comes the sight of his bike, a custom-built Rourke no less, resting against the garage door. No chance of a few more minutes in bed then.

VIDEO: Scroll down to see Sportsmail's Matt Lawton speaking to Tony Pulis

Tony Pulis (left) and Sportsmail's chief sports reporter Matt Lawton prepare for a cycle in Dorset

Pulis barks his orders to his Crystal Palace players in May during the famous draw with Liverpool

Pulis makes some much-needed coffee but it would require a Teflon-coated throat to drink it fast enough to satisfy him. ‘It’s 7.03,’ he declares as I frantically lock my front wheel into place. ‘That’s a fine.’

And then he’s off, rolling down the hill from his house with a chuckle before picking up the pace on the West Undercliff Promenade that eventually takes us along the beach at Bournemouth towards Boscombe and Southbourne.

It’s a beautiful morning and towards the end of our two-hour ride Pulis insists on stopping at the water’s edge to watch the ferry from Poole to Cherbourg chugging out to sea.

With his usual bonhomie he waves at the passengers up on deck and they wave back, oblivious to the fact that one of the two cyclists wishing them safe passage is last season’s Barclays Premier League manager of the year.

Pulis, still keen to return to management, takes his football and cycling seriously

Pulis celebrates as Stoke romped to victory over Bolton in the 2011 FA Cup semi-final at Wembley

Pulis (left) and Lawton look out at Hengistbury Head in Dorset during the two-hour cycle

Quite how he came to be here among those enjoying the last days of an English summer — and not at a training ground preparing one of the many sessions he keeps in a growing volume of notepads — is something he has not discussed until now.

Pulis claims he has too much energy to retire from football for good now

Not just the sudden departure from Crystal Palace on the eve of the new season but the real, deeply personal reasons for leaving Stoke City 15 months prior to that.

Now back in his garden, his body revitalised by a healthy breakfast and his spirits lifted further by a greeting from his wife Debbie and their baby grandson, Luca, Pulis reflects on a most unexpected series of events.

Everything about his 10-month spell at Selhurst Park was astonishing. His success in keeping Palace in the Premier League when the side he took charge of in late November last year had amassed just four points from 11 games was remarkable enough. Somehow they finished in 11th place. But the timing of his departure, less than 48 hours before the new campaign, was even more dramatic.

He left by mutual consent after two meetings in three days with Steve Parish, the co-chairman, joint owner and figurehead of the club. There have since been reports of the two men clashing over transfers, of a clash of personalities and Pulis’s apparent frustration with a lack of support when he was endeavouring to sign players, in particular Michu, Steven Caulker and Gylfi Sigurdsson.

‘The second meeting we had, on the Thursday night, was actually over dinner in Soho and it was all very amicable,’ says Pulis.

‘At Christmas it’s fair to say we had differences of opinion with respect to players coming in. But, look, a chairman has every right to ask why you’re doing things and challenge you. It’s their football club, their money.

Pulis takes a training session during his earlier days at Stoke, who he guided to promotion in 2008

Stoke became an established Premier League side thanks to Pulis' guidance as manager

‘At the end of the day we were two adults going in different directions. I have no problem with that and, to be honest, I don’t really want to go any further into the reasons why I left; only to say that I had a wonderful 10 months there.’

But the timing? ‘I don’t think there is ever a good time to leave,’ Pulis says.

‘It was disappointing. I watched the opening game against Arsenal on the Saturday on TV. I thought they did brilliantly. They were smashing.

‘And, of course, I have affection for the players. I will go and watch them in the next month. I did it with Stoke. Nobody knew I was there. I just bought a ticket and stood among the fans. But I’ll enjoy that because I’ve got an association not just with the players but with the football club.’

There does not appear to be a hint of bitterness. Only pride in what he achieved. ‘I’ve moved on,’ he said. ‘That’s it for me. But that 10 months was as good as any 10 months you could have at a football club.

‘I won the award but they should have given it to the football club because everyone stepped up to the plate last season.

Pulis carries the Olympic flame on the torch relay leg between Stoke-on-Trent and Middleport in 2012

‘And the supporters were just magnificent. I haven’t had a chance to thank them but I’d like to now. I’ll never forget the night of the Liverpool game (when Palace fought back for a 3-3 draw).’

When the call came from Parish some five months after his split with Stoke he had his concerns.

‘I met Steve three times but I wasn’t convinced by certain things and in the end I spoke to Peter Coates (his former chairman at Stoke) and Sir Alex (Ferguson),’ he reveals. ‘I spoke to others but only Peter and Alex told me to go for it.

‘I spoke to Alex on the football side and I asked Peter what he thought about the club off the pitch. He’s a very shrewd football man, Peter.

‘I remember Alex saying Palace had great potential. A great youth policy. They’d brought some good kids through on a regular basis. And their supporters are fantastic. In the Croydon area alone you’ve got 950,000 people. That’s more than most cities.

‘I took Dave Kemp and Gerry (Francis) with me and we had a look at the team, at the strengths and weaknesses, and decided on a certain style of play. There was pace in the team, and good ability out wide. But we also got the players working harder than they’ve probably worked before. It became very difficult to beat us. We were playing with pace and with great confidence.

Pulis says Stoke chairman Peter Coates convinced him to take the Palace job, alongside Sir Alex Ferguson

Pulis with Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish (right) at his unveiling as manager last year

‘When I went in there I don’t think anyone, from the chairman and directors to the players, was convinced we could stay up. We were rock bottom and you could see the doubt in people’s minds. The players were very doubtful. There was that smell of, “Let’s enjoy playing in the Premier League but we’re probably not good enough to stay here”.

‘So the big thing was convincing everyone that if we gave everything we would have a chance. Everyone bought in to what we wanted to do. And the lads we did bring in did great for us. Even Wayne Hennessey. He didn’t play but the threat he posed brought the best out of our goalkeeper Julian Speroni.’

Pulis talks about ‘finding different ways of motivating people’ and ‘different angles’, and discusses why, even at 56, he insists on taking the main training sessions. ‘I’ve always liked to coach and when my team goes out on a Saturday I feel they are my responsibility and not the responsibility of my coaching staff,’ he says.

‘For the bottom 10 clubs in the Premier League what’s crucial is how you react to getting beaten. The manager has to walk in on Monday and be positive. It’s not always easy but you can’t go into work with your chin hanging below your backside.’

One thing that might have irritated him was an interview Parish gave to Gary Lineker on the BBC, when it was suggested the club might not have been big enough for Pulis and that it was possible he had a better job lined up.

‘It was never about another job or a bigger club,’ Pulis says.

Rory Delap celebrates Stoke City's promotion in the 2007-08 season, finishing second in the Championship

Pulis was Stoke manager between 2002 and 2005, and again for seven years from June 2006

It wasn’t about a bigger club when he left Stoke, either. He loved Stoke, and he remains immensely proud of what he achieved there as well. When he arrived for what was his second spell at the club, Stoke were bottom of the Championship. By the time he left some seven years later they were an established Premier League club with a state-of-the-art training ground he helped design. They had also reached an FA Cup final and progressed to the last 32 of the Europa League.

‘From where it was to where we left it, I think it was a model example of how you want to build a football club,’ he says proudly.

‘When we started we would have to take the goalposts down at the end of each training session because the kids would come and jump all over them.

‘It was a training ground where the slightest drop of rain would flood the pitches. The lads would have to drive to the stadium after a session to get showered.

‘The year we got promoted to the Premier League we progressed to Portakabins. One time Danny Pugh was having a shower and his leg went through the floorboards. He was fine but we had to be very careful getting him out because of all the splinters.

Stoke reached the Europa League in 2011-12 season after losing in the FA Cup final to Manchester City

‘But they were great times. We had a team that was really together. And in the city the belief started to grow. It’s a great city. The people are very passionate about their area. I enjoyed that. The atmosphere at the Britannia was electric.

‘I had great years there. Peter backed me. Allowed me to manage. The whole Coates family were so supportive and there were no hard feelings when I left. They were first class, Peter and John, and I’ve seen them since. I have tremendous respect for Peter.’

On reflection he now wonders whether the two men were too close; that the sense of responsibility he felt towards a chairman who became a father-figure to him became too great a burden.

‘In the last couple of seasons, it was always in my mind. I’d think, “I can’t fail Peter. I can’t let them down”,’ he says. ‘Whether that was something that kept playing on my mind, I’m not sure.

‘But I lost my dad a long time ago and Peter did become like a father-figure to me. I almost treated him like my dad and he’d sometimes speak to me like nobody else would. He would speak to me like a father, and tell me off.

‘He thought I was obsessive at times. I’d concern myself with things I didn’t need to and would become obsessive about them.

Pulis revealed the hardships he endured before his final year at Stoke; his grandchild Olivia passing away

‘I actually see that obsessiveness as a strength, but occasionally it can be a weakness.

‘Peter would take me out for dinner, talk me through whatever the problem might be and get me back down to a level playing field.’ In that final season at Stoke there was something else, however. Something far closer to home and something that was deeply distressing for the entire Pulis family. In the summer before his final season, his first grandchild died.

‘Her name was Olivia,’ he says. ‘She was Laura, my middle daughter’s first child. She was born healthy but when she was two weeks old she contracted a virus and passed away.

‘It was a terrible tragedy and for me, as a father, it was the first time I was unable to help one of my children in any way, shape or form.

‘Olivia was just taken away from us. It was a difficult time, especially for Dave and Laura.

‘We’ll never forget Olivia but Luca has lifted those clouds, especially away from Laura.’

Understandably, the job became secondary. ‘I wanted to be there more for Laura,’ he says. ‘And I was shattered by it. Things were happening at the football club that I could have dealt with better, that I didn’t at the time, but in the end we all agreed when I went that it was the right time to call it a day. I needed a break.’

Pulis brought Palace into safety and beyond in the Premier League; beating Chelsea was one a highlight

Palace made Selhurst Park a fortress under Pulis, and now have Neil Warnock as manager

He seems to be enjoying the break he is on now. With Laura back at work, he and Debbie get to spend three days a week with Luca and they are having a blast.

They are also wonderful hosts. The kind of people who never like to see their guests with an empty glass and wouldn’t dream of asking you to remove your shoes before walking across what looks like expensive carpet. ‘This is a home,’ he insists.

He proudly shows off the many photographs of all three children, and says he and Debbie will soon be off to visit the grandchild who belongs to his son Anthony, a footballer with Orlando City in America.

In the meantime he will ride his bike and indulge his passion for history. He likes to read about great leaders such as Churchill and Napoleon, and recently took two elderly former neighbours on a tour of the war cemeteries in northern France. ‘I’ve just been reading the book about the First World War by Max Hastings,’ he says. ‘It’s very good.’

Not that he’s ready to call time on his managerial career just yet. ‘I’ve got far too much energy,’ he says.