Tottenham Women: A Season of Celebration and Transformation

Tottenham’s women did more than play good football last season. They offered their supporters something the men could not: joy without caveats.

While Ange Postecoglou’s side flirted so brazenly with relegation it felt like a full-blown courtship – dinner, candlelight, the lot – the women’s team quietly produced their best-ever Women’s Super League points tally. As the men’s campaign lurched from anxiety to outright panic, the women’s side became the antidote.

A season that actually deserved the word “celebration”

By the time Premier League survival was finally secured on the men’s side, the mood among many Spurs fans was relief rather than triumph. The contrast with the women could hardly have been sharper.

They delivered a 7-2 demolition of Aston Villa, the sort of wild, open game that lives in the memory for years. They survived a surreal FA Cup penalty shootout against London City Lionesses in which the first 17 penalties were buried with ice-cold precision before someone finally blinked. They scored from everywhere, including a 40-yard thunderbolt from Cathinka Tandberg that belonged on a season review DVD.

While one corner of north London obsessed over sideways passing around the men’s penalty area and a transfer policy that seemed determined not to plug gaping injury holes, another corner found something healthier. Three years ago, inspired by the Lionesses’ run to the 2023 World Cup final, one family – like many others – chose to buy season tickets for Tottenham Women.

In Brisbane, during that World Cup, a small knot of England supporters watched their side beat Colombia 2-1 in the quarter-final. Around 2,000 Colombia fans packed the fan zone. Roughly 20 England fans were there. After the final whistle, Colombian supporters diverted from their own disappointment to shake English hands. Respect, warmth, a shared experience. That, the family decided, was the kind of football environment their son should grow up in.

They found it with Tottenham Women.

Martin Ho’s imprint

The transformation on the pitch has a clear starting point: Martin Ho’s appointment as head coach last year.

Ho arrived with a solid pedigree – assistant at Manchester United, head coach at Brann in Norway – and quickly built a reputation inside the club as a coach players both like and respect. The whispers from behind the scenes say plenty about his man-management; the evidence on the pitch says even more.

At Leyton Orient, where Spurs Women play most of their home games, Ho has not hidden in an office. He has wandered through the Legends Lounge before kick-off, chatting with supporters, putting names to faces. The connection is not a gimmick. It matches what his team do on the pitch: front-foot football with structure and purpose.

Tottenham under Ho attack with intent and defend with clarity. Players know their roles. They know where the next pass is, where the cover is, how to support the runner. The chaos of a side unsure of itself has gone.

Recruitment helped. Olivia Holdt, operating from midfield, finished as the club’s top scorer last season. Toko Koga became a rock in central defence. In January, Signe Gaupset arrived and immediately added something different: those surging carries through midfield that drag a team 30 yards up the pitch in a heartbeat.

Just as important was Ho’s work with the players already there. The previous campaign, 2024-25, had been a mess: a finish just one place above relegation and the departure of head coach Robert Vilahamn. Twelve months later, the same club opened the league season with five wins from six.

No one outside the dressing room knows exactly what Ho said to reignite established players. What is clear is that it did not resemble the infamous Igor Tudor-style teardown, where a squad is told it can’t attack, can’t defend and can’t run. Spurs, last season, could do all three.

Eveliina Summanen’s control, Amanda Nildén’s intelligence, Lize Kop’s presence in goal, Drew Spence’s experience, Clare Hunt’s authority at the back – they formed the spine of a side that became genuinely enjoyable to watch.

Chasing the WSL elite

There were reality checks. Manchester City, powered by Khadija “Bunny” Shaw – whose goals-per-game ratio outstrips even Erling Haaland’s – handed Spurs a couple of heavy defeats. City went on to win the league, finishing ahead of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United, the four clubs that still set the pace in the WSL.

Yet Tottenham did not drift into mid-table anonymity. They finished fifth, the best of the rest behind those heavyweights. From that vantage point, the top four no longer looks like a fantasy. It looks like a target that could be hit in the next year or two.

The club’s early moves in the transfer market underline that ambition. Within days of the season ending, Spurs announced the signing of Netherlands international Caitlin Dijkstra from Wolfsburg, a defender with pedigree and presence. Germany forward Shekiera Martinez followed, having looked a ruthless finisher in a struggling West Ham side. Kirsty Hanson arrived from Aston Villa, Alice Sombath from OL Lyonnais. These are not speculative punts. They are proven players added to a squad already on an upward curve.

There is, of course, a cost to evolution. Saying goodbye to Bethany England and Ashleigh Neville has hurt. Neville’s decision to move to Leicester to be closer to home makes sense on a human level. England’s departure is harder to fathom. As the club’s record goalscorer, she surely had a case for at least a one-year extension. Spurs have chosen a different path.

The team that walks out at the start of the new season will look very different from the one that first drew many of these supporters three years ago. What has not changed is the bond in the stands.

A different kind of matchday

Among the season-ticket holders, the knowledge base runs deep. Many have followed both the men’s and women’s sides for years. They write blogs, record podcasts, stand at West Ham in the rain and wind, and remember the days when a handful of them watched Broxbourne Ladies – as the club was then – graft their way up the divisions.

They have seen the journey from scattered crowds on modest pitches to WSL football at professional venues. They have not forgotten it.

The atmosphere around the women’s team reflects that history. Supporters still question decisions, still ask with pointed politeness whether the referee might benefit from a trip to a high-street optician, but the toxic edge that so often infects men’s games is largely absent. The anger doesn’t spill over in the same way. The language is different. So is the energy.

Before kick-off, fans drape banners over the stands, many of them featuring Spurs players alongside the Progress Pride flag. The message is unmissable: everyone is welcome here. For some supporters, that visibility has been a quiet revelation – a reminder that football can be more than a pressure valve. It can be a force for inclusion, for change, for showing young fans that this sport belongs to them too.

On the pitch, the game itself offers its own twist. Women’s football might be fractionally slower than the men’s version, but the rhythm is sharp and the action flows. There is no VAR to drag everyone out of the moment. Decisions stand. Sometimes they are spectacularly wrong. The trade-off is five extra minutes of tension and noise instead of five minutes of baffled waiting, staring at a giant screen that explains nothing.

What comes next

Tottenham Women now stand at a fascinating point in their development. They have climbed to fifth. They have a coach with a clear idea, a squad being upgraded with international quality, and a fanbase that feels invested in more than just the scoreline.

The hope is simple: bigger crowds, more people discovering that a day at Spurs Women is not a consolation prize, but a different, often richer version of the same obsession. The club’s trajectory suggests the football will justify that curiosity.

Other women’s teams are out there, offering their own stories, their own communities. But in north London, one side in white is quietly building something that looks a lot like the future.