Tony Pulis with his trademark Stoke City cap on
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Tony Pulis has never been one for style over substance.
The former Stoke boss’s brand of football favoured results over aesthetics and grit over flair, with his teams very playing playing in his own image.
Why Tony Pulis always wore a baseball cap
The cap would follow him to each of his clubs So why did the Welshman embrace this trademark look? It wasn’t branding, sponsorship or any fashion reasons – but superstition.
Pulis began his managerial career with Bournemouth, when he replaced Harry Redknapp as boss in 1992, spending two seasons with the Cherries, before taking up his second managerial post at Gillingham, where the cap years began.
Pulis oversaw five Premier League seasons with Stoke City (Image credit: Getty Images)“I wore a cap when it was tipping down with rain,” he recalls to FourFourTwo. “I think we won.”
The headware was then put to one side after that game, but with the Gills up against it in their next game, a superstition was born.
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“In the next game, we struggled for the first half, so I was looking for my cap, I thought that was the reason. I’m pretty superstitious, most managers are – you wear the same tie or the same suit if you win.
A rare capless Pulis “I put the cap on, then I think we won the game in the second half.
“From there I thought, ‘Well, that cap is sticking with me now.’”
Pulis would go on to manage eight more clubs, including the two spells at Stoke City which saw the Potters establish themselves in the Premier League and carve out a niche as the division’s chief provocateurs, with Pulis’ cap as symbolic as Rory Delap’s long throw-ins.
For more than a decade, Joe Mewis has worked in football journalism as a reporter and editor. Mewis has had stints at Mirror Football and LeedsLive among others and worked at FourFourTwo throughout Euro 2024, reporting on the tournament. In addition to his journalist work, Mewis is also the author of four football history books that include times on Leeds United and the England national team. Now working as a digital marketing coordinator at Harrogate Town, too, Mewis counts some of his best career moments as being in the iconic Spygate press conference under Marcelo Bielsa and seeing his beloved Leeds lift the Championship trophy during lockdown.
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