Stoke City favourite on being tapped up by West Ham and headlocks from Johan Boskamp

John Halls has recalled loving life under Tony Pulis, being tapped up by West Ham and being put in a daily headlock by Johan Boskamp in a colourful recounting of his time at Stoke City.

The former right-back, now a 41-year-old model, made his senior breakthrough at Pulis’s Stoke after starring in an Arsenal side which had won the 2000 FA Youth Cup.

He provided a touch of flair in a team which was establishing itself back in the Championship and all was rosy on a personal basis until Pulis departed and his contract came up for negotiation under new boss Johan Boskamp.

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Halls picks up the story in the Reading-based 1871 podcast, saying: “I was having a great time at Stoke, wasn’t planning on leaving. I was doing really well and getting a lot of plaudits, and I was happy to stay and see how we went on.

“But then Tony Pulis was sacked and Pulis was my man. I loved Pulis to bits. He brought my game on and made me more defensive than I probably would have been because he played me right-back.

“Tony Pulis was a really defensive-minded guy but he also let me do what I wanted to do and I did well for him. He said ‘as long as you do it like that, you’re good to go’.

“But Pulis got sacked and they brought in a Dutch guy, who I loved as well, but my contract was coming up for renewal and, I don’t want to sound like a greedy b******, but we went in there saying I wanted to be the highest-paid player at the club.

“They said cool, they’d do that no problem – but then they threw a clause in, a big clause – a release clause. We didn’t really want that so it went back and forth for ages, and while this was happening, I’m going to say it, Pards (Alan Pardew) called me up to meet him at a hotel saying, ‘We’ll get you to West Ham when your contract finishes.’ I thought cool, I was going to West Ham.

“Then the Dutch manager at Stoke – he was a blinder, a big geezer – said that if I didn’t sign my contract they wouldn’t play me so I got stuck on the bench for a couple of months.

“When I went to training in the morning I used to try to find a back way in because he would be sitting by the entrance at the front and he used to call me ‘Catweazle’. Do you remember Catweazle? I had long hair at that point.

“He used to get me in a headlock and I’d be like, ‘Gaffer, no!’ Every morning he’d grab me and say, ‘Sign your contract, sign your contract.’

“But I didn’t and then it got to January and suddenly Pards and West Ham went quiet. I had three or four options of clubs who were looking like they were going to the Prem but then Reading came in and Stacks, Sids, Harps, (Graham Stack, Steve Sidwell and James Harper) my friends, back down to London and it sounded great to me.

“In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have joined a team where your right-back is the captain, he’s doing amazing, and the team isn’t losing a game. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have gone to a team like that, but I did, and I was told I would have to be patient until the end of the season

“It was quite disheartening, it’s hard when you’re a footballer and not playing- it’s really difficult and I found that really difficult. I probably got myself into trouble a few times and whether (Steve) Coppell liked me or not… I was a bit too dangerous for Copps.”

Halls joined Reading in January 2006 for £250,000 but didn’t make his league debut until the April – against Stoke, when he scored in a 3-1 win.

That would prove his only appearance as Reading won promotion to the Premier League – and he would spend the next season on the sidelines in the top flight. There would be a series of loans before he left for good, bound for Brentford and League Two, in 2008.

Halls said: “When I first went there as a right-back I had come from Arsenal. At Arsenal the last ball you play is in the channel- if you play a channel ball at Arsenal you probably get pulled off. I grew up playing football, whereas I went to Reading and he said, ‘Your first ball is in the channel and the second ball is to your winger, and your last ball is into midfield- and if that midfielder loses the ball, then it’s my fault.’

“I wasn’t going to change the way I played, I was more of a risk player. I don’t really know who signed me because if you’d have watched me at Stoke you would have realised what kind of player I was. I don’t want to talk bad about people because it was great, and they took a chance on me.

“It didn’t work and I did some silly things when I was there that probably didn’t help me- drinking and whatever- but it’s one of those things. Being in and around it, being involved with a team that won the league that convincingly was amazing. I loved it, it was great. I love the boys to bits and all the coaching staff, and Copps, but it wasn’t meant to be for me.”

Halls hung up his boots in May 2012 but is still a familiar face thanks to his work in fashion, modelling clothes for brands including Next and White Stuff.

Soon, he is hoping, he will be selling his own range too.

“I’m a full-time model, or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “I’ve got my main ‘mother agent’, as they call it, in London and he looks after me on everything – and I’ve got model agencies in every big city in the world. They all talk together and pimp you out a little bit and give you jobs. I’ve been doing that now for 11 or 12 years.

“Since I’m in the industry and I like clothes, slowly but surely I’ve picked up a lot of skills and I want to make my own clothes.

“I sat down with a model friend of mine, a really good friend, and we said we could do our own thing. We’ve got a load of contacts and we can try to get things for free or a drink and that was it.

“We were going to do it before Covid and I wish we had because people were sitting on their sofas going nuts and buying everything. We didn’t do it but now we’re looking to release 2024 spring/summer.

“I’m doing that at the moment but it’s hard to do it because I’m missing deadlines while I’m flying here and there for work. It’s more difficult than I thought to find fabrics, especially to try to do it in England or London where it’s really expensive.

“We’re finding our feet, learning about fabrics and it’s going to be good. It’s just getting there and I’m excited about it.”

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