Pulisgate

The saga currently taking place at Plymouth Argyle would be more akin to a soap opera than a football club as the Tony Pulis will-he-or-wont-he-leave storyline rumbles on.

Argyle fans patiently wait and wait for the outcome that can only be described as “Pulisgate”.
It is now over four weeks since multi-millionaire Peter Coates announced that he was to take over at Stoke City and bring in a new manager. This set alarm bells ringing at Home Park because it was widely reported that Coates would look to bring back former Stoke manager Tony Pulis to the Britannia Stadium.

Those 4 weeks must have seemed like a lifetime to the Argyle and Stoke fans as they were fed a daily update by the regional press both in Plymouth and in Stoke.
And let’s spare a thought for those Stoke fans, they have been just as worried as the Argyle fans, indeed they currently have no manager and have made it quite clear that Pulis is not welcomed back at the Britannia Stadium. Although the standing ovation Pulis received from the Stoke fans when he took his Plymouth team to Stoke in February should be noted and chronicled for possible future reference.

Sure enough, as soon as the ink was dry on the take over contract, Coates made his move for Pulis. Plymouth chairman Paul Stapleton immediately issued a “hands-off he`s ours” warning to Coates, who meekly accepted this as a shot across his bows.
Just prior to this Pulis himself entered the public arena by issuing a non-committal “it`s just speculation, I have a job at Plymouth Argyle”, before packing his bags and heading for the sunnier climes of Portugal.
Make no mistake; Pulis did a fantastic job in keeping Argyle away from the dreaded drop into obscurity with a limited squad, but Argyle fans were expecting a little bit more information from their manager.

But are there dark forces at work here? Was the initial approach from Coates just a public way of getting things moving along, with Plymouth now holding out for a decent compensation figure from Stoke? Does Pulis want to move to Stoke?
He hasn`t come out, grabbed the green and white flag and waved it high and proud as standard-bearer for the Green Army. This is what has irritated most Argyle fans, why hasn`t Pulis pledged his future to PAFC?
Just say all this blows over and Pulis stays at Plymouth Argyle Football Club. But can he carry on, has the damage been done?

Another sign that the pantomine season has arrived early is the part played by Ian Holloway in all of this. The Queens Park Rangers manager is currently on “gardening leave” ( surely there are no gardens in west London? ) but has been touted as a nailed on 100% replacement for Pulis, indeed he is just waiting for the nod once Pulis returns from his holiday.

An intriguing subplot is that Coates, Stapleton and Pulis will all be in Portugal this week. The two chairman for the annual Football League shindig ( Portugal of all places ) and Pulis finishing off his well earned break. You couldn`t make it up, surely a Hollywood scriptwriter could put some flesh on the bones of this epic masterpiece?

Amongst all of this, the Argyle fans wait and wait, reading the rallying calls to commit to the football club in the form of buying season tickets, buying the new away shirt, ” just commit please, we need your money to get some new players”. Should the reply be “OK, we`ll commit to the future of PAFC, just as soon as Tony Pulis does.”

Returning to the soap opera theme, will the estranged husband leave his mistress and return to his wife and the family home, leaving the mistress to bring in a new man, one she has had eyes on for the last few weeks?


So where are we now, I hear you ask? Well we wait, once again, until both chairman and the in-demand manager all return from Portugal and then finally, hopefully, please dear God, we just may get an answer to the age old question: Is Tony Pulis moving to Stoke City?