Pre-season triumph!

It has seemed like years since 13th May and the end of the football season. Never before I have eagerly awaited a new season more than this. It feel like Spurs are on the verge of something good. Expectations were high last season and despite doing well in all cup competitions, it just wasn't to be.

In the transfer window, Spurs have bought wisely bringing in Younes Kaboul, a 6'3 burly central defender from France; Gareth Bale, a left back with the potential to cover the left wing; Adel Taraabt who was made a permanent signing and looks a very promising youngster; Kevin-Prince Boateng - a German Ghanaian who plays midfield and Darren Bent from Charlton for a record transfer fee of £16.5m. The latter was thought by most fans to be far too much money, however, many will now be silenced as in pre-season games he has notched up five goals already.

Daniel Levy, Tottenham's chairman how vowed that they are not a 'selling club' and he has been true to his word. Mido, who is surplus to requirements now we have four top strikers, was sold to Birmingham for £6m - a good return. His fellow countryman, Hossam Ghaly was set to follow for £3m but reports this week have said that the deal is off after speculation that Steve Bruce was less than happy with his approach at a recent training session. The one player I didn't want to stay at Spurs has come back; he is not in favour with fans after the 'shirt throwing' incident and he certainly won't get a good reception if he happens to find his way onto the White Hart Lane turf next season.

So this is how our friendlies have gone this year: Played 7 won 7. Can't get any better than that!

7 July Stevenage Borough (away) 1-3 Keane, Bent, Taraabt
12 July St Patricks, Dublin (away) 0-1 Keane
21 July Kaizer Chiefs (away) 1-2 Keane, Berbatov
24 July Orlando Pirates (away) 1-2 Bent, Routledge
28 July Orlando Pirates (away) 0-3 Bent (2), Berbatov
1 Aug Leyton Orient (away) 2-4 Keane (2), Defoe, Bent
4 Aug Torino (home) 2-0 Keane, Berbatov

It may not be a major achievement but winning the Vodacom Challenge Trophy in South Africa is a really nice start. Last season the team won the Peace Cup in Asia and played well - however, when it came to the start of the Premiership, only managed one win in six games. I'm hoping this doesn't happen this time around.

So the Premiership gets under way next Saturday and Spurs will be the first game, kicking off at 12:45 away at Sunderland. It is live on TV and I can hardly wait. After Everton mid-week we have Derby the following Saturday, a game I shall be at with bells on!

One negative has to be the change of ticketing system at the club. They say it was tested before going live, but OMG the problems have been horrendous. You can't choose your seats anymore; you can only choose the section you want and it allocates the seats for you. That, I can just about live with, but when you try to book online, the system doesn't know how to cope. Just last week, I logged on at just before 9:30 for Arsenal tickets - ones I was desperate to get as I've never managed to get to a North London derby before. I got in okay, got allocated seats and then I put in my credit card details and pressed the relevant button. Nothing happened and the same page appeared again where my credit card details were required. I entered the details again and this time I went onto an 'authorisation in process' page. This only lasted 30 seconds before the previous page returned again asking for my credit card details. ARGH! Rather than risk duplicating the transaction I checked my credit card online and it showed that the money had been taken out. I therefore assumed everything was alright. I then spoke to a friend on myspace and discovered there is a personal membership page on the website which gives details of what tickets you have bought and the status of despatch. My Derby ones showed up as despatched but the Arsenal ones weren't there at all. After advice from someone on Spurs Network forum I sent a e-mail to the ticketing office to find out what the hell is going on. They've taken my money but I have nothing to show for it. I am not the only one; this is happening to thousands of fans by the sound of it. Apparently they have so many e-mails to get through, I have no idea when I'm likely to get a response. If I have no tickets, I will be extremely angry. This is THE match that every Spurs fan wants to be at and it looks like I may miss out yet again. :-(

I don't want to leave this blog entry with a whinge so back to the boys. Many pundits, the media, and even the likes of Jose Mourinho have predicted that Spurs will break into the top four this season, edging out our rivals Arsenal. (That of course, will give us fans immense pleasure)! Whether or not Spurs are ready for the UCL I'm unsure but it's the only way to go to progress. If this doesn't happen, it's a must for us to at least win one piece of silverware. The squad we have now has the potential for success and those glory glory days we keep mentioning are surely (at last) returning to the Lane.

COYS!!!