Edinburgh Festival forces Tottenham to set up camp in St Andrews

Published Date: 17 August 2011
By ALAN PATTULLO
They were once renowned for being the great entertainers, but Tottenham Hotspur have had their patience stretched by the Edinburgh Festival, which has impacted heavily on their Europa League play-off clash with Heart of Midlothian tomorrow night at Tynecastle.
The English Premier League club will only travel up to Scotland this afternoon after training at their Chigwell base and have been forced to relocate 50 miles north up the east coast to St Andrews after no acceptable hotel accommodation could be found in Edinburgh, or its environs.

Due to the travel complications, Spurs will forego the opportunity to train at Tynecastle this evening, which they would otherwise normally do. It increases the possibility of the London side being caught cold in the first leg, at a sold-out stadium. The club's start to the season has been littered with setbacks. The clash with Hearts is now their first competitive clash of the season after Saturday's league fixture with Everton was postponed due to the civil unrest in London.

Now their arrangements ahead of tomorrow night's match have hindered by a Festival which has swelled the numbers in Edinburgh to almost double the normal number of residents. Spurs first team coach Joe Jordan lived in the city in the early Nineties when in charge at Hearts and yesterday he admitted the largest arts festival in the world had been a hindrance ahead of tomorrow night's match.

"Yes, it has been a big problem, I couldn't believe it," Jordan said. "It's been a problem with our preparation, but we'll get around it. We would have preferred to stay in Edinburgh, but we're a long way away from it. We're up at St Andrews.

"We would have liked to have been closer on the day of the game so our journey there would have been a lot shorter."

A club spokesman said that Thomas Cook Sport, the company arranging Spurs' travel plans, had said "it would have been easier organising a trip to play a game in Russia".

Jordan admitted it had not been "ideal preparation" for the trip to his homeland. "We would have preferred to have had the game against Everton, 100 per cent, to get us going," he said. "It's one of those things, but this is not what we would have wanted."

The London side are already coping with severe injury problems despite not yet having kicked off their competitive season. Luka Modric is the club's only fully fit central midfielder. Sandro has definitely been ruled out, as has Steven Pienaar. Central defender William Gallas will also be absent, while fellow centre-half Ledley King is also rated extremely doubtful.

Wilson Palacios, Jermaine Jenas and Tom Huddlestone are other doubts. In addition, striker Peter Crouch did not train yesterday, although former West Ham United player Thomas Hitzlsperger has been involved this week as he continues to search for a new team.

Such injury concerns have stretched even a club of Spurs' resources and, according to Jordan, manager Redknapp is intent on fielding his strongest available side. The Scot firmly ruled out the possibility of resting players ahead of Monday night's trip to Old Trafford.

"I don't think that will ever enter the man's head," he said.

Taken from the Scotsman