Get the latest Boro stories straight to your inbox with our daily newsletter Enter your email Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Middlesbrough’s FA Cup tie against Newport County won’t be just another game for Tony Pulis.

Born and raised in the South Wales town, the 61-year-old watched the club as a boy and played for The Exiles as a professional footballer. But the ties go deeper than that. Pulis insists his modest, working class Newport childhood made him the man he is today. Growing up in a big family in a small house near the docks he could well have worked in had he not made it as a footballer, Pulis speaks with huge fondness about his early years.

He also sees parallels between South Wales and Teesside both in terms of the industrial heritage and the people. In an exclusive Teesside Live interview conducted at Rockliffe Park, Pulis reveals a side of himself rarely seen publicly when he speaks in depth about his early years in Newport while also discussing his FA Cup experiences as a player and manager and looking ahead to Saturday’s fourth round tie at the Riverside.

Philip Tallentire: What were your immediate thoughts when the draw was made?

Tony Pulis: “Gouldy (Boro coach Jonathan Gould) rang me. I get superstitious with certain things and I don’t like listening to cup draws just in case they go against you. I know what kind of draw we’ve been given if one of my family or friends rings straight away.

“Gouldy was the first one who texted me and he just said: ‘Wow’. And left it at that. My first thoughts were it was a Premier League club at home, something like that.

“And then I got as text from Debs (Pulis’s wife) saying: ‘Oh my God it’s going to cost you a fortune’. And then it came out it was Newport and, yes, it’s going to cost me a fortune! All my friends are coming up and family as well.”

(Image: Getty Images)

PT: How much of the South Wales/Newport lad still remains in you?

Tony Pulis: “In respect of my football life I built everything that I’ve done on that area. I was brought up down the docks and I had a fantastic upbringing. We had nothing but we had everything. I think people know there was eight of us living in a three-bedroomed terraced house.

"Up until I was 15 there was four of us sleeping in one bed. So it was four boys in one room, my two sisters slept in the other room and my mum and dad slept in the box room so that’s the way we were brought up.

“It was a fantastic childhood, I’ve got great memories of the area and everything else. It wasn’t an affluent area, people always thought it was a rough, tough area. But in those days summer would come and you’d leave the house after you’d had your breakfast at 8’o’clock and you wouldn’t get back in until 8’o’clock the same night. Mum and Dad would never worry about you, the door was always open. I had friends coming out of my ears.

“Football was obviously massive. The local team I played for was only five minutes away so I was always down there playing football with my friends.”

(Image: Matt Wilkinson/Focus Images Ltd)

PT: You had steelworkers in the family didn’t you?

Tony Pulis: “Dad worked in Whitehead Steelworks (in Newport). Where I lived, at the bottom of the road was the railway that took all the coal down from the Valleys to the steelworks and to the docks. And then three streets down were the first dock gates, six streets down were the main dock gates. So everything was built around those industries as people will tell you about this area.

“Everything revolved about what happened down the docks, everything revolved around what was happening in the steelworks and that was the life.

“Dad would come in, he’d have something to eat, he’d have a wash and a shave and go out and have a couple of pints and Mum would look after the family.

“Like I say, it was Mam and Dad and six children living in a very, very small terraced house but I don’t think we missed out on anything.”

PT: Would the docks or the steelworks have been your life if you hadn’t played professional football?

Tony Pulis: “Dad had put my name down to get an apprenticeship in the docks when I was very young He thought that being an apprentice down at the docks was the best job you could ever get, being a docker. There was four of us boys so he was always trying to make sure us boys had something to aim for. But it went the other way, I got offered a contract and left when I turned 16.”

(Image: Teesside Live)

PT: Do you see similarities between Newport and Teesside?

Tony Pulis: “The people in Teesside, in this area, the people I’ve met out and about have been very warm. They are very honest, very straight-forward and very warm people and it reminds me so much of South Wales.

“One of my great mentors was a person called Bill Dodgin who was from County Durham and Bill always used to talk very, very highly of this area.

“Bill was the one that set up the network, the school of excellence in South Wales that brought so many good Welsh lads through to Bristol Rovers at the time.

“Bill used to always talk about this area, about how honest, hard-working, straight-forward the people were and he thought South Wales reflected this area and that’s going back now four generations. Even now, after four generations where the world’s changed enormously, I still feel that warmth.”

PT: Didn’t you take some of the Boro lads on a bike ride around Teesside last season?

Tony Pulis: “We went to Whitby, we cycled from here to Whitby and had fish and chips on the front and there were about eight of us and I enjoyed just riding through the area.

“Listen, I can’t tell you how big a surprise the area has been for me. The wonderful countryside, even the coastline at times, is just extraordinary, it’s a wonderful place and so different to what I thought it would be. It’s been most probably the biggest surprise. There are steelworks, there are chemical works, there are cobbled streets I’m sure, but the area itself is a beautiful area.”

PT: Of the two transporter bridges, which one’s best, Middlesbrough or Newport?

Tony Pulis: “Well I’ve been over Newport’s but I haven’t been over Middlesbrough’s. I’ve been close up to it and had a good look at it and it looks a lot posher that the one at Newport. But they are very similar in lots of respects, very similar.”

PT: Was Newport County your team as a lad?

Tony Pulis: “I would go and watch Newport. But I was always playing on weekends, I always wanted to play, I was never, ever one of those that didn’t want to play but if I wasn’t playing I would go over and watch them and Cardiff as well.

“When I got a little bit older we would nick on the train and jump off without paying. Then we would try every which way to get in without paying. If you remember the corrugated steel along the bottom of the fences we would go round the back of the Grange End, jump over little rhyne (ditch) and up side and try and nick in and if we did we’d get a burger with the money we’d saved from not paying to get in! I can remember watching Leeds there one day and you’d try to nick in so you’d have the money for the burger.”

PT: Did you have an ambition to play for Newport with it being your hometown team?

Tony Pulis: “No not really. It came along and I left Bristol Rovers and played for Newport for two years and had a great time. I played with some great players: Leighton James, Bob Latchford, David Giles, Linden Jones, Mark Kendall, who was a top goalkeeper who’d come from Tottenham, Terry Boyle, John Relish, some really, really good players. They were a good team.”

(Image: Getty Images)

PT: What are your memories of the FA Cup as a youngster?

Tony Pulis: “I tell you what I remember about the cup when I was in South Wales growing up was there wasn’t many games on TV then that were live and the FA Cup was special, it was special to everybody in the Sixties and Seventies.

“We used to get up in the morning with great expectations, I’d have my breakfast, I’d get a ball and we’d go and play. We had a dry dock at the bottom of the road, over the railway bridge there was a dry dock with a field and we’d play there until about half two and then we’d rush back to listen to Abide With Me and then sit and watch the game. After the game had finished we’d pick that ball back up and head back over to the dry dock until it started getting dark. There would be 15-20 of us, and that was our cup. But it was a fabulous day, and an extraordinary day because it was live football, something that we didn’t get unless it was a World Cup year. The FA Cup remained special all the way through.

“One of the great disappointments of my life is that my dad had passed away by 2011 and didn’t get to the cup final when we took Stoke there.

“But it was special and you just hope it gets that special feeling back that it had years and years ago.”

PT: Do you have any special FA Cup memories from you playing days?

Tony Pulis: “Yes, when we were at Bristol Rovers we beat Southampton and then we played Ipswich in the fifth round and that was the game that was played on ice and Bobby Gould scored a goal that was ruled offside. We drew (2-2) but we scored a goal which was a good goal and they showed on the TV highlights the next day that Bobby’s goal wasn’t offside. They gave offside but it wasn’t offside, we should have won that game 3-2. We played really well in that game.

“Then we went to Ipswich on the Wednesday night, took a bundle of supporters there and they won 3-0 and went on to win the FA Cup final (1978). So that was a massive deal then.

“We’d beaten Sunderland in the third round that season and, again, Bob Gould scored for us. They beat us at Eastville in the league and then we drew them in the cup and you think ‘bloody hell’, but we went there and won. Good memories.”

(Image: PA Archive/PA Images)

PT: How tough is it balancing a promotion campaign and a cup competition?

Tony Pulis: “I think what has happened more than anything else is the priorities of getting into the Premier League is everything. Being in the Premier League is everything, the priorities of trying to get in there is everything.

“As I’ve said before, Steve (Gibson) threw everything at it last year and I do mean everything, every penny and he’s got to take great credit for what he did in that respect and certain things have not happened that he hoped would happen and you can fall into that trap because of the Premier League.

“If you look at the FA Cup now, if you ask the top Premier League clubs their priorities are the cup will be third, they’ll go the Champions League, they’ll go the Premier League and then they’ll go the FA Cup.

“When we were at Stoke we believed the priority would be the FA Cup because we were established at the time in the Premier League. In respect of the Premier League you’ve got time to have a good cup run because the games are spaced out more. In the Championship the amount of games that are played in such a short period – it’s midweek, midweek and midweek again. So it’s difficult.”

(Image: Ian Cooper)

PT: Was managing a team in a Wembley FA Cup final a career highlight (Stoke lost 1-0 to Manchester City in 2011)?

Tony Pulis: “It’s one of them. I’ve been promoted out of every league, been to an FA Cup final, got to the latter stages of the UEFA Cup when we played Valencia, they were all great games.

“Taking a team out at Wembley to a boy that was born in the Fifties was massive, to walk through the tunnel and take your team out... but we lost and I’ve never watched the game back because we lost.

“I can remember the chance that Kenwyne (Jones) missed, I remember us not having our best team because we had a couple of injuries to very, very important players before that game and that was when Manchester City were the best team in England. Under (Roberto) Mancini they were young, they were ambitious, they’d beaten Manchester United in the semi-final.

“The only things I can remember is their goal, Yaya Toure scoring it, and Kenwyne going through one-on-one, it was 0-0 at the time and if we’d scored we could have got something out of the game.”

(Image: The FA via Getty Images)

PT: It must have been tough to see Newport go bust and pleasing to see how they’ve bounced back?

Tony Pulis: “The story of them coming back after dropping down the leagues is a fabulous story and Michael’s done a great job there, I’ve got great respect for Michael (Flynn, Newport’s manager).

“Obviously he’s a couple of generations younger than me but he’s from Baldwin Street, just four or five streets from where I was brought up. Michael’s done a fantastic job there and I think Lennie Lawrence behind the scenes – he’s a fantastic lad, got great experience and I’ve got great respect for Lennie and he’ll be helping Michael along the way.”

PT: Were you cheering on Newport in the last round when they knocked out Leicester?

Tony Pulis: “I watch all the Welsh teams from Wrexham right the way through and if there’s a Welsh team on the telly I’ll watch it. It’s important they do well.”

(Image: Getty Images)

PT: What sort of challenge do Newport pose for you?

Tony Pulis: “They are physically strong, they’ve got good balance in the team and players that can cause you problems, irrespective of what league they play in.”

PT: Didn’t you speak to Michael Flynn after the draw was made?

Tony Pulis: “Mike rang me up and left me a text message and I told him I’d look after him AFTER the game!”

PT: How important will both sets of fans be on the day?

Tony Pulis: “It’s about the players, the players have got to go out there and play and play well, irrespective of the atmosphere. We talked about it on Saturday in respect of ourselves and you’ve got to respect the supporters, the supporters pay a lot of money to watch their team play and you’ve got to be on it every game.”

Tickets are on general sale now for Middlesbrough’s home fourth round tie with Newport County on Saturday, January 26. Seats cost £15 (adults), £10 (over-65s) and £5 (under-18s). Fans can buy tickets online via www.mfc.co.uk or in person at the Riverside box office. Newport have sold more than 850 tickets for the tie with more than 1,000 County fans set to make the journey to Teesside from South Wales.