Passing the Torch

Surely enough time has passed that it's safe to talk about Bethany England's last home Spurs game without needing to reach for the tissues, right?

I have a feeling it's still going to be strange to see this Spurs Women team play next season without England on the pitch. But we still have one more (away) match to go, so there's a chance she can seal her Tottenham Hotspur career with another goal contribution—not that she has anything left to prove at this point. She will always be a Spurs legend.

While it's never easy to say goodbye to beloved players, we at least got some reassurance that there are some talented youngsters to build around for the future. Signe Gaupset (still not even six full months into her time at the club) and Olivia Holdt both shone as Spurs outlasted London City Lionesses to win 2-1 in the home ground closer for the season.

In this issue: London City Lionesses recap | Transfer talk | News from around the Lane | Pub chat

The team is on the road to Brighton for the final matchday of the Women's Super League campaign, and it promises to be a competitive matchup.

There's also some news to round up this week, including a call to vote and a contract extension that I must admit took me by surprise.

And in this week's Pub Chat, I'll be revisiting my favorite topic to rant about: Spurs Women attendance.

WSL MD 21 | Tottenham 2 - 1 London City Lionesses

Gaupset 13', Holdt 28' | Kennedy 90'

I realize a lot of time has passed since the final whistle (apologies, but my motivation to write just wasn't there last week), so let's just run over a few big talking points from the game and move swiftly on to the jam-packed notable & quotable segment.

• Both Spurs goals came about from London City defensive errors, but they were still nicely taken shots from both Signe Gaupset and Olivia Holdt. Holdt's in particular could be a Goal of the Season contender—if we hadn't already scored so many fabulous goals this season, not least from Holdt herself.

• It's fortunate that the midfielders stepped up with goals because the forwards are in a bit of a dry spell. Neither Cathinka Tandberg nor Maika Hamano has scored at club level since the Aston Villa game back in February, and Matilda Vinberg's last goal came in the FA Cup later that month. We will need them to step up in a big way next season without Beth England, though Hamano may not return after her loan concludes.
• Our defense underestimated the attacking threat posed by former Spurs player Alanna Kennedy—who led Australia in scoring at the recent Women's Asian Cup. She was the only London City player to get on the scoresheet, and she had another good headed chance earlier in the game that Lize Kop saved. But no hard feelings since we still won the game.
• Speaking of Kop, she had yet another strong performance in goal that made a difference to the result. We'll get on to who actually won the Supporters' Player of the Season awards later, but as far as I'm concerned, Kop should have been a prime candidate.
• Besides the late consolation goal for London City, the only real disappointment of the game was seeing Ella Morris forced off with an apparent knock. In just three games back from her ACL injury, she's already started two games (including this one) and played nearly two full 90s. If I have one major criticism of Martin Ho in his first season at the club, it's his reluctance to use substitutions, especially in scenarios like this where player load management is a concern. Morris did initially try to play on, however, before requesting treatment from the trainers, so hopefully she was just being proactive and acknowledging her limitations when the manager wouldn't.

After the match, the players who are departing the club in the summer had a nice farewell ceremony, including flowers and a short speech from England. Hopefully they all felt the love from the Brisbane Road faithful.

Notable & quotable:

• This was the team's first win in any competition since February 15, which was the 3-7 result at Aston Villa in Women's Super League play.

• In earning the three points, we reached our best-ever WSL points tally, 33 points and counting. The previous club record was 32 points, set in the 2021/22 season under manager Rehanne Skinner.

• We also set new club records for most wins in a WSL campaign with 10 and most goals scored with 33.

• The home portion of the season concluded with only three losses, two of which happened at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and only one at Brisbane Road.

• In the 11 home matches, we picked up 20 points, 61% of our season's total, with just one away match left to play.

• We have clinched a 5th-place finish in the table; Brighton cannot overtake us even with a win, and we can't get ahead of Manchester United in 4th. This will be the second time we've finished 5th in the top flight, and it remains our highest-ever table placement.

• Olivia Holdt is now tied with Beth England for most WSL goals this season for Spurs, with seven each.

• Signe Gaupset was pleased about starting the game off right with an early goal:

It was important and nice for us to get the goal a bit earlier than we have done previously, it makes the game a bit more calm and really nice for myself as well to get the goal.

• Gaupset also remarked on how much she's enjoying playing next to Drew Spence in the midfield, which Martin Ho echoed in his post-game comments:

I think if you look at the way we play with the ball and how we progress the ball, it's really, really good. Some of our build-up was very good. I think what that allows is Drew and Siggy to be more flexible in that build-up phase. With them in there, it allows Siggy to go free up and play slightly higher, knowing you've got the experience and the quality of Drew behind her.

Transfer talk

• Olga Ahtinen has signed a new multi-year contract with the club.

I was a little surprised to see this news pop up today because there had been credible rumors near the end of last season that she was going to leave the club to join Hammarby. That obviously didn't come to pass, and she has had some decent game time this season compared to other fringe players in the squad (though mostly as a substitute, with only three starts). But it was unclear whether that depth role would be sufficient for Ahtinen's own ambitions in her career, having previously been a key player in Robert Vilahamn's first season.

Time will tell if she's going to play a more prominent part going forward or stay in a supporting role, but regardless, Ahtinen decided to extend her stint at Spurs. Fingers crossed that she can get back to the level we saw from her prior to her ill-timed MCL injury.

Reflecting on her three years at Spurs so far and looking ahead to the future, Ahtinen alluded to the improvements across the team both on and off the pitch:

I know where we have been and what direction we are going, too, and I feel like the things that we are doing on a daily basis really show that we are going to be able to compete with the teams that are above us and we just want to get better every day.

I feel like a lot has happened during my time at Spurs and that this season, we've shown really that we've taken steps in the way we play and I feel like even our day-to-day life. It's been really good and challenging, but it's been the right place for me to become a better footballer.

She also mentioned that she hopes to lead by example as one of the more tenured, experienced players on the squad:

It's hard to sometimes realise I'm actually starting to be one of the more experienced ones. I hope that I can show every day with my work ethic and with my just doing things as well as I can to show that that can be the way that I can lead.

• On the executive side, Spurs Women also announced the departure of Managing Director Andy Rogers. This came as an even bigger surprise, seeing as he had just been a panelist for the Q&A at the supporters' end-of-season event just a few days previous. No news yet on who will be replacing him.

News from around the Lane

• Spurs Women received two nominations for the Women's Super League end-of-season awards:

• Olivia Holdt is nominated for Player of the Season.
• Martin Ho is nominated for Manager of the Season.

Voting has already closed, unfortunately, but fingers crossed for both of them!

• From Spurs' own supporter-voted end-of-season awards, there were three worthy winners:

• Tōko Koga for the Adult Supporters’ Player of the Season
• Clare Hunt for Junior Supporters’ Player of the Season
• Cathinka Tandberg for Goal of the Season

Congrats to all three players! And it's nice to see a variety of players being recognized.

• Joining Kevin Danso from the Men's team, Bethany England was named the PFA Community Champion for the Women's team. As I said before, England's presence will be missed not only on the pitch, but also in the community.

• Mikey Moore was honored as Young Player of the Year at the PFA Scotland awards.

• Finally, Tyler Tingey from the Men's Academy U18s has been nominated for Under-18 Premier League Player of the Season, a brand new award.

• Now for a roundup of other various Academy news:

• The Women's U19s followed in their seniors' footsteps by finishing 5th place in the PGA League. A few players from the senior team were present to support them at their last game of the season: Cathinka Tandberg, Hanna Wijk, and Jess Naz.
• The Men's U18s also completed their season, finishing 2nd in their league. In their last game, Armend Muslika scored four goals, including a first-half hat trick within a span of 11 minutes. A name to keep tabs on, for sure.
• The Men's U21s did not want their season to end just yet, but they were knocked out of the PL2 playoffs by Brighton & Hove Albion in the semi-final match held at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
• The Men's U16s won the U16 Premier League Cup with a 3-5 victory at Fulham. After taking an early lead through a penalty, they ended up needing to make a comeback from 3-1 down. Congrats! This means the club has won a Premier League cup in at least one Men's Academy age group for the last three seasons straight.

• The field is almost complete for the upcoming all-WSL edition of the World Sevens Football tournament, with only one team left to be announced. Spurs Women have been placed in group 2 with Aston Villa, West Ham United, and Manchester United, with matches starting on May 28. Check out the club's article here for more info on the format of the tournament and fixture dates for Spurs. No word yet on which players will be involved in the small squad.

Pub chat: Spurs Women attendance woes

For all the tangible progress Spurs Women have made on the pitch, there is still a lot of work for the club to do off the pitch to draw the kinds of crowds these players deserve.

After compiling all the attendance data for this season, it's clear that we have two separate issues when it comes to attendance at Spurs Women games:

• Attendance at Brisbane Road (BR), the team's primary home ground, is largely stagnating.
• Attendance for games at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (THS) is actually decreasing.

The concerning decrease in attendance for the would-be marquee matches at THS can be partially explained by the fact that the club chose not to have the North London derby at the main stadium this season; conversely, the BR edition of the NLD boosted that ground's average attendance, but did not lead to a significant increase in fans for the other BR fixtures.

Here are a few of the key attendance stats for this season:

Total attendance in all competitions: 41,692
Total in WSL only: 39,286
Total in WSL at BR only: 17,804
Average across all competitions: 2,978
Average in WSL only: 3,571
Average at BR only: 2,226
Average at BR without NLD: 1,573
WSL low: 1,356 (vs Aston Villa at BR)
WSL high: 9,356 (vs Chelsea at THS)
WSL high at BR: 6,788 (vs Arsenal)

Before I share some of my takeaways, let's take a look at some of the positives and negatives from this season's attendance figures.

Positives:

• There weren't any sub-1K attendances at BR this season for WSL games.
• The BR average rose slightly from last season, from 1,625 to 2,226 (but mostly due to the strong NLD showing), an increase of 37%. If you take out the NLD outlier, the BR average was slightly less (3%) than last season's average when we didn’t have the home NLD at BR, so this positive comes with an asterisk.
• The BR season-high figure for the NLD was 73% of the ground's capacity.
• The final BR match this season was slightly higher than the equivalent home closer at BR last season (London City Lionesses this year vs Aston Villa last year for the opposition), but the actual home closer last season was against Chelsea at THS.

Negatives:

• We still haven't achieved a sell-out crowd at BR.
• No THS game reached 10K attendance, and the Everton match was below 5K—which wouldn't even fill out BR.
• Total attendance for all competitions was down almost 19K from last season, even with one additional game (in the FA Cup).
• League Cup attendance was down 23%, though it's notable that last season our two home games in the competition included a quarter-final, whereas this season we only had group stage games at home.
• We had lower attendance for the home opener at BR this year, though just barely (West Ham United this season vs newly-promoted Crystal Palace last season).

Takeaways:

• The club is not properly promoting home openers & closers at BR, nor cup games. Both the opener and closer this season had attendance below the average for the team's primary home ground. Cup matches are usually among our lowest attendances of the season, and that was certainly the case again this year. Part of the issue is that the Women's League Cup has a different format from the Men's edition, but for a savvy marketing team, that could also present an opportunity.
• Attendance receives a significant boost or dip depending on where the NLD is played. That fixture is consistently our highest attendance of the season at its respective ground. Although the NLD is not as keen of a rivalry on the Women's side as it is on the Men's (yet), it still attracts fans of Tottenham Hotspur in general who are not frequent matchgoers for Spurs Women. It would seem that not enough is being done to capture & retain those fans and get them to come to other home fixtures throughout the season.
• The new standard kickoff time of Sunday, 12 PM noon UK has been an unpreventable hindrance to attendance, not just for Spurs but for every team in the league. The early hour makes it more difficult for fans taking public transportation, especially for away games. It also provides an obstacle to families who may have children involved in their own football matches, as well as adults participating in grassroots football. And I can't see how noon on a Sunday would be an attractive time for the demographic of young adults, either. So basically, you're only getting the most committed of fans who are willing to schedule their lives around the WSL, and even some of those fans from previous seasons have become less frequent attendees. The onus is on WSL Football to work with broadcasters to find more amenable kickoff times—and just more kickoff times, period. When fans are unable to watch neutral matches because their own team is playing at the same time, it discourages engagement with the league in general, and can even make fans feel less invested in their team's matchups when they become less familiar with the opposition than they used to be.
• On a bitter note, I'm disappointed that for all the talk of fans shifting more of their focus to Spurs Women in the aftermath of the club's decision to hire Roberto De Zerbi as Spurs Men manager, there's been very little evidence of such good intentions translating into a visible increase in support—whether in matchday attendance or online chatter about the team on social media (how most of us across the pond experience matchdays). There was even the convenience of one of the home games post-RDZ appointment taking place at THS, a familiar place for the average matchgoing Spurs fan, yet the attendance for that main stadium game paled in comparison to last season's THS fixtures. It's even more frustrating to see that lack of follow-through when those were difficult matchups, and the players definitely could have used the extra support. But I have complained many, many times about how good intentions aren't enough when it comes to supporting women's football, so I'll leave it there for now.
• On the topic of the Men's team, it does seem like the club was too preoccupied with the relegation fight to put proper effort into promoting the Women's main stadium fixtures this season, which are usually the most visibility Spurs Women get across the club's various marketing channels. But the bigger issue is that the club also failed to capitalize on the genuine energy around the primary ground at BR. Although the crowd hasn't grown at BR, there is a solid core of fans creating a vibrant matchday experience, and the ground is finally starting to feel like home to them in the club's fourth season there. If the THS fixtures are going to be neglected, it's better to put full focus on BR for now.

Feel free to share your thoughts about Spurs Women's attendance challenges in the comments. I'm especially curious to hear about any pain points besides the kickoff times that have made attending games difficult.

Hopefully, we will see larger crowds at BR next season, befitting the ground that has become an undeniable fortress for Spurs Women in terms of performances and results.

Up next:

May 16 | Spurs Women @ Brighton & Hove Albion
Team news — Eveliina Summanen is available for selection again after missing the last game; Ella Morris was not listed as being out of contention despite her knock in the previous match.

Brighton & Hove Albion have been on quite a tear lately, including reaching the upcoming FA Cup final against Manchester City. They've drawn with both Manchester United and Arsenal in their last two league games, and had beaten their FA Cup opponents City in WSL play recently as well. Their path to the cup final included a shutout win at Arsenal and a comeback win in the semi-final at Liverpool. So if Spurs want to end the season on a high note, they must take this game seriously.

We could extend our WSL points tally record with a result, while Brighton can achieve their own best-ever tally with a win. They are also pushing to finish in the top half of the table over London City Lionesses, so there is still plenty for both teams to play for, though mostly in the realm of pride rather than implications for next season. But on that note, both sides will likely be pushing to upset the usual top 4 teams in an ambitious bid for Champions League qualification next year.

There are a few stats I'm keeping an eye on for this final game:

• Spurs' keeper Lize Kop and Brighton's keeper Chiamaka Nnadozie are still in contention for a potential joint Golden Glove award—so long as none of Ayaka Yamashita, Hannah Hampton, or Phallon Tullis-Joye record a clean sheet in their own games. Hampton and Tullis-Joyce are in a direct matchup, making mutual disappointment more likely.
• Lize Kop has already set a club record for WSL clean sheets in a season with six; the previous mark was Becky Spencer's five clean sheets in 2021/22.
• In Spurs' attacking ranks, there is a close race for most WSL goals scored this season. Beth England and Olivia Holdt are currently tied with seven each (Holdt has the edge on overall goal contributions, though, with three assists to England's one), and Cathinka Tandberg is only one goal behind with six. Sadly, none of our forwards are getting anywhere close to the Golden Boot since Bunny Shaw is running away with it (19 goals and counting).
• Lenna Gunning-Williams is the only (active, non-injured) forward with at least one start this season who hasn't yet scored a goal in WSL play. Interestingly, Drew Spence is also without a league goal; her only goal this season came in the FA Cup against Leicester City.

Here's to a strong showing in the final match!

COYS

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