It’s a weird quirk of modern life that, for whatever reason, the odd thing from endless scrolling strikes a chord and stays rent-free in your head.
For me, it’s the immortal, perfectly captioned “me / my mum talking for 20 minutes / some person we bumped into at the shops” featuring the Slipknot drummer’s pained look directly into the camera lens.
Listening to post-retirement podcast-era Tony Pulis conjures up that exact same feeling of childhood ennui.
“So I phoned Peter Varney up, the chief exec, and said you better get over here because it looks like I’m leaving…”
“—He’s a good lad, Peter.”
Close your eyes. Shut out the actual content of the words. Just listen to the general tone. The ambient hum of Boomer banter.
You are 10 years old. You’re off to a match, sat in a generic Greene King boozer a couple of hours before. Glass of coke, bag of mini cheddars, half-listening to the idle chat between your dad and Some Bloke™ while you’re more engaged with Snake II on your older brother’s Nokia 3210.
This is what you can hear. Proper Football Man ASMR.
Tony Pulis knows everybody in football pic.twitter.com/pTbxU9KQVM
Pulis is the platonic ideal of your date’s mate. You have absolutely no idea why he’s here, but apparently he knows everyone.
You could put the Stoke City legend in any pub in Britain and within 10 minutes he’d be telling you how he knows the landlord’s brother.
“Yeah, lovely fella. Done a bit for us. Always had a lot of time for him.”
Credit to prime Barclays-era archivist @Nozza_ for doing god’s work and combing through god knows how many hours of Pulis’ ‘The Managers’ podcast to compile him knowing seemingly every single figure who has ever been involved in English football.
In the world’s most oversaturated market, you can’t help but wonder who exactly the Pulis podcast is for.
But from these two minutes alone there’s something lovely and soothing about Pulis talking about footballers, scouts and people he hasn’t seen for years. The sort of conversation you could listen to for hours without retaining a single detail.
There is something depressingly very 2026 about needing a podcast to help you fall asleep after a day spent staring at screens. American comedian Joe Pera has perfected the medium, quietly and gently talking about nothing in particular while you drift away.
Pulis might just have created the perfect version for the millennial Brit who grew up on a diet of the Rory Delap’s long throws, Soccer AM and the Premier League Years.
“Yeah, I bumped into him at a game not long ago. Had a cup of tea and a bit of a catch-up. He’s doing alright. Still loves his football. That’s the main thing with him.”
Sleep well. See you in the morning.
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