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Tony Pulis has appointed Sam Ellis as Boro ’s new assistant manager.

The veteran dug-out man, 71, will take over from long-time assistant David Kemp, who has retired to California.

Ellis has over five decades of experience in football as a player, manager and assistant.

He was a tough-tackling centre-back who started his career at Sheffield Wednesday and who played as a teenager in the 1966 FA Cup final against Everton, which the Owls lost 3–2.

Ellis went on to play for Mansfield, Lincoln and Watford. At Vicarage Road he became coach and assistant manager to Graham Taylor where he was part of the Hornet’s spectacular rise up the divisions.

He struck out on his own as manager of Blackpool in 1982 and was later boss at Bury and Lincoln then was assistant to Peter Reid at Manchester City, Stan Ternent at Burnley and was with Kevin Blackwell at Elland Road as Leeds made the Championship play-offs in 2006.

Like Kemp before him, Ellis has a long-standing relationship with Pulis after first teaming up with him at Stoke in 2006.

(Image: PA)

The new man was part of the dugout team in the pre-season friendly at Spennymoor on Tuesday and was set to out to Germany for a training camp with the squad today.

He will act as sounding board and confidente for the boss in the same way Dave Kemp did.

Kemp retired to live in the United States last summer when the pair were at West Brom but when Pulis took over at the Riverside he persuaded his trusted ally to join on a temporary basis.