Tony Pulis column: Hypnosis, Al Pacino and lies – how I tried to motivate my players

In my second season in charge, 1993–94, my Bournemouth side, now in League One, were drawn against Premier League side Blackburn Rovers in a second round League Cup tie.

We traveled up to Blackburn for the first leg on Tuesday and after an afternoon nap, we all attended a pre-match meeting. I had a special surprise guest for the boys – a hypnotist.

During his session he asked the group to sit in a circle on chairs, while he sat at the top of the room feeling – he believed – vibes from the boys.

He turned off all the lights and gave them two minutes of silence in a pitch-black room but then, when he went and turned on the lights, all their chairs were empty. I was surprised – he lost everything!

It turned out there was a side door to the room and when the lights went out, our boys decided to leave our man alone. He was great about it though and took it in good form.

Although the team didn’t play their role the way I wanted in practice, it was great for our preparation because they were all still talking about the hypnotist on the match bus, there was no tension before the match.

Blackburn had a brilliant side under Kenny Dalglish at the time and were formidable opponents who were fighting for the Premier League title.

We lost the game, Alan Shearer scored the winner for Rovers, but only went out 1-0 on aggregate. The boys gave such a great performance and didn’t hold back – I thank the hypnotist for that.

Sometimes though, thinking outside the box just doesn’t work. I don’t know why!

When we went to the Premier League during our promotion season at Stoke in 2007-08, we put together a video that showed all our goals for the squad that season to play before a key point in our run-in, with four games to go at Coventry in April.

Just before kick-off, the boys sat down to see what all the positive aspects of the matches we’ve played so far had been really uplifting, and the video ended with a rousing performance by Al Pacino from the film ‘Any Given Sunday’, as he inspired his locker room with an incredible speech about teamwork and desire.

I felt after hearing our players talk like that, only a victory could follow, but at half-time Coventry, who were battling relegation, were 1-0 up and we were absolutely useless.

My assistant Dave Kemp was waiting for me at the dressing-room door during the break and just said, “Put those toys away and be you!”

In the second half, after some choice words and a bit of a reset, we went out and managed to win the game 2-1 to go top of the table, the character the team came through again.

Pacino’s words to try to motivate my players were incredible and miles good, but it goes to show that there is a time and a place for everything – and that time was not then!