Pulis’s interest in Napoleon began after Gillingham, taking him from military history to Corsica—and eventually to advice for managers facing unemployment.
Tony Pulis’s interest in Napoleon Bonaparte offers an unusual window into how the former football manager thinks about leadership. His latest BBC column connects lessons from military history with the demands of managing a team, drawing on a fascination that began soon after he left Gillingham in 1990.
The column, titled “Why managers can learn a lot from leaders like Napoleon,” describes how Pulis’s appetite for learning extended well beyond football. He visited clubs including Bayer Leverkusen, Athletic Bilbao and RB Leipzig, then at the start of its rise from the bottom tier of German football. He also read about historical leaders and studied battles.
“Whatever I was doing, I always felt like I was learning, and not just by watching football around the world,” Pulis wrote. “I became an avid reader of sports books and also finding out about great leaders of men through history.”
Napoleon, he says, stood out for his attention to detail and his grip on his generals. Pulis also points to the loyalty of Napoleon’s troops, who, in his words, “would literally die for him”. That devotion is part of what makes Napoleon such a complicated leadership example: the loyalty came amid wars that caused immense loss of life, and ended with his exile—twice—to remote islands.
From a football column to Corsica
Pulis’s interest eventually took him to Corsica for the 250th anniversary of Napoleon’s birth in 2019. A reporter from French newspaper Le Monde had learned of his fascination with historical leaders and invited him to share a British perspective on Napoleon as a person and a leader.
Pulis was managing Middlesbrough at the time. During the trip, he visited Napoleon’s birthplace and met a six-foot-six descendant of the French emperor. It’s a striking footnote to a football story: the encounter brought together a manager known for studying opponents and a family still linked to one of history’s most studied commanders.
In his column, Pulis also cites the Napoleonic Code, which remains the foundation of French civil law. His account stresses Napoleon’s enduring appeal to supporters despite the hostility he inspired elsewhere. That dual legacy is central to the comparison: command and loyalty can be compelling qualities, but they don’t erase the consequences of a leader’s choices.
READ: Tony Pulis saying “I Know Him” about everyone is Peak Football Dad & weirdly comforting
History as a manager’s reference point
Napoleon isn’t the only historical figure or event that has drawn Pulis’s attention. He has also travelled to places associated with famous battles. One summer, he went to Crimea to see the site of the Charge of the Light Brigade, describing the soldiers involved as “the bravest of brave men”.
These trips suggest that Pulis sees history as a way to think about pressure, loyalty and leadership beyond the touchline. The comparisons can be playful—Napoleon’s expansion across Europe, for instance, invites an analogy with a team pushing too far. But the more practical point in Pulis’s column arrives when he turns from military campaigns to the realities of a manager’s career.
His advice to those who follow him is straightforward: don’t be afraid to take a job at a lower level. “It is better to get a job, any job, than be out of football full-stop,” he writes, adding that the principle hasn’t changed since his own time in the game.
For Pulis, the lesson from a life spent studying leaders appears to be less about grand victories than staying engaged and continuing to learn. His own route—from leaving Gillingham to travelling for football and history, and later managing Middlesbrough—gives that advice a personal frame.
By Sam Cooper
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The post Tony Pulis’ Napoleon adoration was not what we expected to read this morning appeared first on Planet Football.
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