When I’d just turned 18, although I was about to join the professional ranks, I’d still always go back to Wales and spend time with the lads I grew up with.
At this time, I had just started dating Deb, who is now my wife, so my nights out at the weekends were changing anyway.
My mum and dad were much happier if I was spending time with Deb, because it would be better for my career. I still managed to get out with the lads from time to time, though. This was one of those occasions.
One particular Easter, Rovers had played a home game on the Saturday and I wasn’t involved. I travelled back to Wales and took Deb out for dinner but, on the way out, I met up with the gang from Pill, the area I was born in, in Newport.
After a few drinks they convinced me to play with them the next morning, in a semi-final of a Sunday League cup competition. I was told I was not breaking any rules because I wasn’t a fully fledged professional. I was always desperate to play whenever I could anyway and as far as I knew that was the only game I’d play that weekend. I was wrong!
The next day, at the crack of dawn on a very wet Sunday morning, Deb drove me up the valleys to where the game was taking place, and we won on a pitch that I will always remember being full of puddles and on the side of a hill.
I went home because I had to catch a train back to Bristol. The distance from Temple Meads to Eastville Stadium was a good distance and on that particular day, myself and the other Welsh lads ran back because the first team were travelling to Wolves for an evening kick-off on the Easter Monday.
Our usual jobs were to clean boots and help pack the kit, but when I got there I was pulled in by the manager and told to get back to my digs to get a suit, because I was travelling with the team to Molineux.
It wasn’t unusual for a young lad to travel with the senior squad, to help with the kit and gain some experience, but when we arrived at our hotel I was told I would be starting the game, alongside vastly experienced defender Stuart Taylor in the back four.
Molineux was packed that night and the atmosphere was incredible. It took an unbelievable strike from Steve Daley to beat us 1-0.
My preparation for the game was pretty unique with that game on the sloping pitch up in the valleys the previous morning, but I still did OK.
It taught me an important lesson about how unpredictable a life in football can be – and how unpredictable life is in general.
Tony Pulis was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.