Welcome to another season. Tottenham On My Mind doesn’t usually creak into action during the summer phoney war of transfer rumours and pre-season tours, both of which combine to invariably create an unrealistic picture of Tottenham’s fortunes for the coming season. But this feels different.

The story so far. Last summer, an estimated 220,000 delirious fans swamped the High Road on a working day to hail the victorious Europa League winners. The sun shone, and players, manager and fans were never closer. Communal exultation was tinged with relief. A first trophy since 2008, we were at last released from carrying the burden of years of unfilled promise and countless missed opportunities, the wasted hopes and wasted money. Surely this was a corner turned.

So we appoint Thomas Frank, a manager with a reputation for organisation, motivating players and bringing out the best from both team and individuals. Daniel Levy is brusquely pushed aside as members of the Lewis family take more direct responsibility for running the club. They appoint a CEO, Vinai Venkatesham, to work sporting director Johan Lange, and we handle his Arsenal past because we sorely lack structure, strategy and direction at board level, and, well, look at them.

The club fills up with new recruits. At board level, people who supposedly know about business and big money. On the staff, new directors and heads of insert vaguely medical/fitness/recruitment jargon word. A few decent players too, although maybe not enough quality and experience….

So much has happened since then, it feels like a decade’s worth rather than a single season. I actually checked I’d got the dates right: I’ve become as ludicrous as the club. Last season was an interminable ordeal, a relentless progress down the table with indignity piled upon crisis, most of which was self-inflicted. Much of the football was nothing short of pitiful, the only signs of creativity coming in the varied and ingenious ways we found to lose football matches.

While the players should shoulder their due responsibility, this came from the top. The Levy era embedded a culture characterised by a lack of ambition and a failure to commit our financial resources to a squad worthy of challenging for honours in a highly competitive environment. Where the loyalty of fans paying some of the highest prices in Europe, fans who filled the ground every week and who packed out every away allocation, was  patronised and treated with contempt. By the end, fans were alienated and disillusioned. The divide between us and them had become an abyss.

I believe the board and senior staff thought the Europa League win gave us a season’s grace where in the safe hands of Thomas Frank, we could consolidate, settle and gradually develop the team. Certainly a top half finish, maybe a European place, then second season, we could move. This included committing resources in the transfer market over these two seasons.

It quickly became clear that this strategy reeked of complacency, an attitude which nearly led to relegation. Frank was unable to instil into the team any of the qualities he is known for, albeit with an injury decimated squad. In January, the club hierarchy – it’s not clear who was taking key decisions, Lange, Venkatesham or the board, and that seems to be one of the problems – failed to react to what every fan could see, denying the reality of our form and league position in what amounts to a scandalous dereliction of duty. Frank was dismissed at least a month too late, then we appoint a caretaker with no experience of the Premier League as manager.

The Fan Advisory Board meeting in March revealed the results of an internal survey confirming severe problems with the club’s internal culture and their relationship with supporters. It includes the damning line, “VV explained that there is now complete clarity across the Club that on pitch success is our number one priority and focus.” In other words, in the past, this was not the case. A football club where the team’s success is not the priority.

In the end, a combination of the new manager and another team with similar chronic problems on and off the pitch, only worse, got us a late and perhaps undeserved reprieve. 12 months on, the joy long since evaporated, the relief remained. The question of whether another club has lost so much goodwill, so quickly and when it was so avoidable is a valid one but for another time.

This was my worst ever season, without doubt. I’ve been a fan since the mid 60s, a regular at the Lane since 1969. Repeating a quote I’ve used before, Jackson Lamb in Slow Horses said that it’s not the hope that kills you, it’s knowing it’s the hope that kills you. I’m a fan. That will never change. Tottenham til I die isn’t a chant, it’s a way of being. I work in social care and we do these courses where trainers often ask you to introduce yourself in three words. Mine are, father, husband, Spurs fan. This is tricky in my world as potentially the last bit reveals me as insubstantial and trivial, but I say it because it is true. Being a supporter is, for me, a profound representation of self. It is fundamental to my identity and who I am. It is the sole consistent thread of my life from boy to man. Through several upheavals and tragic losses, the club is still there.  

This past season, for the very first time, I thought it had all become too much. The intensity of my commitment was harming me. There was no benefit, no release, no time out from anxiety provoking life events, certainly no enjoyment. I was angry, anxious, despairing. Sleep disrupted, irritable with others, low mood. All of which is self-induced. I don’t have to be there, but I have to be there.

This sounds bewildering to the non-fan. I was sharing this with a close friend. She listened, and I know she cares, then she said, ‘remind me again which team you support.’ It was so refreshing. Everyone I know asks me about Spurs, which is fine, but it didn’t matter who I supported. Free from Spurs, just for a moment. I hope too that this sounds odd to authentic supporters whose emotional commitment is more balanced and can put being a Spurs fan into a better, safer place than I can. It’s much more healthy.

But this is me, too old to change now. I talk to lots of Spurs fans, and I know I’m not the only one. There are many problems in the relationship the club has with supporters, but the most significant is that they simply do not grasp the profound, lasting meaning of being a fan. They think they do but they don’t. How for many of us, being a Spurs fan is inextricably intertwined with identity, with family and friends, with how they handled major life events, how we make decisions about our future. About who we are.

I can deal with mediocre football, disappointment and unfulfilled promise. I learned that early on, as have my son and granddaughter who I now sit with. Disillusion passed down the generations. Even the trophy winning teams of the 70s and 80s did not play consistently to their potential in the league. I’ve experienced relegation, plus the following season where remember we very nearly did not make it back at the first attempt, squeezing out a dodgy last game draw to go up.

But two seasons not just of awful football but the doing nothing about it really got to me. Obvious flaws ignored amid the stench of complacency and decay, the missed opportunities over two decades, the club hierarchy’s aloof isolation and steadfast inaction when the team was crumbling. That was what did for me. Being with family and longstanding Spurs friends saw me through and I will always be grateful, because that is the true nature of being part of the crowd.   

I’ve been writing Tottenham On My Mind since 2009. The club could have saved a fortune in consultants’ fees by reading it, because I long ago reached similar conclusions. But now we move on – or do we? Regular readers, of which there are many, and I sincerely thank you, will be familiar with paragraphs that consider the state we’re in, and begin with the words ‘but surely’. As in, but surely things will change now. But surely the club must address these problems. But surely the club can’t let this state of affairs carry on, and sure enough, they do.

But surely, this lot are paying attention. One positive consequence of being awful is that the hierarchy have come to their senses and don’t want to be awful any more. Against type, we’ve gone big and early in the transfer market. Tonali and Fernandes will revitalise our central midfield and bring out the best in others, those that are still around that is. Because my wife’s family are diehard Hammers (and I confess things were a little awkward at times in our household towards the end of the season), I watch them a lot and can vouch for Fernandes as a real talent.

We have some money and PSR wiggle room, partly because of our income, partly because we’ve not invested as we should over the three year PSR period. It’s pointless asking if these players are worth the money because they are worth it to us, and if these are the men we want, it is right to go for them. Also, we’ve had to pay the twat tax, the money you have spend to put right an avoidable mistake. In my case, it’s to pay for a professional to rectify my DIY mistakes, at Spurs it’s a different level but the same principle. Combined with this approach is a salary structure heavily revised upwards. Again, these are market forces that the Levy regime wilfully ignored, and have enticed Senesi and Roertson, both sound arrivals.

These are welcome signs of positive change. Less clear cut is the debate about our selling policy, in particular, the sale of promising talent such as Vuskovic and Lankshear. This too implies a change of policy. Recruitment under Lange, and for periods in the past, seemed most comfortable in identifying young talent. Now, it seems we have run out of patience. We can’t wait for this talent to mature, so instead we are buying proven top class players.

Partly this is to free up funds for other purchases that are ready in the here and now, but as ever it’s more complex than that. Partly, like you I’ve become attached to young, skilful players like Devine, Lankshear, Phillips and Donley, and I’ve wanted them to succeed. I though they had a chance, and they’ve not had first team opportuntites, but the reality is that they may have reached their level as good championship players. PL teams are not coming in for them. Later, they may rise into the PL but the reality is that we want players at a high level.  

Anyway, selling young players has moved into new territory. Making a £30m profit on a player who has never appeared in a competitive Spurs first team game is a hint that times are changing. Loans are not the only development opportunity now. PSR is a fact of football life we can’t ignore, no matter what we feel about the players concerned. For example, on social media many Villa fans have demanded to know how we can spend this money when we’ve finished 17^th twice in succession. League position isn’t hugely significant given our finances, so partly this shows those posters know nothing about football finance, but partly it’s frustration that although their club’s owner possesses a fortune, they have less PSR room to manoeuvre because of previous spending and high income to salaries ratio, much higher than ours, which is (or was) amongst the lowest in the division.  

The trend is to sell and get some cash now, and build in a percentage of any future selling on fee and matching rights. If, for example, Lankshear or Vuskovic become the stars we need, we have the option of buying them back. Nobody ever knows the path of a young player’s development but this is some of the best insurance, and to repeat the obvious, because of our past failings we have big problems to solve here and now if we want to be contenders.

It does leave unanswered the question about the pathway to the first team for young men. I can’t say with authority how good Tynan Thompson might become but at 18 he was keen to move away. Does he see more opportunity at Old Trafford, or did they offer more money? At Spurs, Moore, Williams Barnett and Byfield all look good to me and I hope we can find a way to keep them at the club. At a higher level, the same goes for Gray and Bergvall, with for me Gray being the real prospect.

All this means a change for fans too. We get attached to our young players and want to support them on their journey to the first team. ‘One of our own’ is truly meaningful. Maybe that’s becoming a thing of the past too, a forlorn hope in a football landscape dominated by globalisation and capital, where players are commodities to trade. It’s another diminution in the supporter experience. It’s hard to see how that will change, but as fans we can do our level best to ensure that Venkatesham and his hierarchy stick to another promise made at the FAB, that he addresses the “growing disconnect between the Club and its supporter base.”

So probably this piece is a long-winded way of saying I’m looking forward to the new season and writing about it. Thanks for sticking with TOMM, and I’ll keep a watch on how he gets on.

Tottenham On My Mind has always been free to read and always will be. If you have any spare cash, my fellow Spurs fan Jim Brigden donned his Spurs shirt and cycled up to The Open in aid of charity, here’s his page: https://golffoundation.enthuse.com/pf/jim-brigden