Tony Pulis, Richard Keys and Andy Gray discuss the background behind the old phrase about a wet and windy night at Stoke City
Tony Pulis on the sidelines at Goodison Park.
Tony Pulis on the sidelines at Goodison Park.(Image: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
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Tony Pulis has revealed that it was a trip to Everton that inspired one of his brainwaves to keep Stoke City in the Premier League against the odds.
Pulis has sat down with Richard Keys and Andy Gray this week to go through his career, including a phrase that was popularised by the former Sky Sports duo about a wet and windy night at Stoke – which came to be seen as football’s litmus test.
“We were the originators of that old phrase,” said Keys. “A little like The Entertainers [a nickname for Newcastle United in the 1990s] because it was a very different place, wasn’t it?”
It was often wet and nearly always windy but it wasn’t just that which helped an unfancied Stoke team get 35 points in their 19 home matches in 2008/09, which would have been enough for survival on its own.
Pulis has often referred back to a phone conversation with Sir Alex Ferguson in the summer of 2008 which helped set him straight about the challenge that lay ahead – but now he has added a bit more flesh to the bones as to what happened next.
He said: “What happened was that I spoke to Fergie and Fergie said to me, ‘No disrespect…’ – we’d just signed Ryan Shawcross, he’d played on loan in the Championship, did really well and we’d signed him – and Fergie said, ‘Listen, no disrespect but I’ve watched you play. It’s going to be a massive, massive struggle for you. Unbelievable struggle.’
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“We had a mid-table Championship budget so he said you’re not going to get many points away from home so you’ve got to make your home ground a fortress. You’ve got to do stuff that everybody doesn’t enjoy going there for. He said if any of the top clubs give you compliments after they’ve played you there, you’re not doing it right. He said, ‘Just keep that at the back of your mind.’
“So I said ok and then went to watch a game at Everton. Their pitch looked a little bit tight and then I realised it was the narrowest. So I thought, ‘Well, that’s an idea.’ Then we found out what the diameters of the pitch could be, brought it right in as small as we could make it.
“Then when we played the better teams I used to get the groundsman to roll the grass about 20 minutes before the opposition turned up so it looked as though it was perfect but it was long. After about five minutes (it popped up). Fergie said one day, ‘Tone, I’m sure I’ve seen squirrels popping their heads out on the side of the pitch.’
“We had one of the corners that was open. They’ve closed it now but it used to blow. I think it’s the second or third highest ground behind Oldham and West Brom. The wind used to blow in and you used to turn up and I used to walk over to that side and see what the wind was like, ‘Oh, brilliant.’
“That first year another great thing happened. Gary Megson was manager and we got beat 3-1 but it could have been five, six or seven. One of the gambling companies paid out on us getting relegated.
“So I read that and I went on the radios in Stoke, I went on the TV, I went in the press, I did everything saying that they’re showing us no respect, it’s Stoke-on-Trent now – they’re not doing it against us, they’re doing it against Stoke-on-Trent. So when you turn up, make sure it’s us against them, irrespective of who we play. That’s how we got that atmosphere.”
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It was in December 2010 that Gray was discussing nominees for the Ballon d’Or and gave a throwaway line about how Premier League candidates had to prove they could perform “a cold night at the Britannia Stadium” which was incomparable to what a La Liga player might encounter.
So Keys asked Pulis: “How do you think, to use that phrase, Messi would do at Stoke on a wet winter’s night in October? Let’s add a gale.”
Pulis was pretty sure of the answer.
“He’s one of the greatest players I’ve ever seen,” he said. “His balance, his movement, he can do and could do anything.
“I took my son to watch him when Barcelona were playing at Arsenal. The Barcelona team ran out and they were in a circle doing a little bit of a warm-up and then all of a sudden this little boy ran out with his shorts around his knees. He’s got a ball under his arm and he boots this ball about a mile in the air and then brings it down with one touch. Brings it down and takes it away. He never runs to the line once, his stretches were just embarrassing and Anthony turned to me and said, ‘He ain’t up for it, Dad.’
“Well, I think they were 3-0 up after 15 minutes, he’d got two and made the other one. Just unbelievable.”
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