Young defender ready for home town battle

It’ll be a special occasion for young defender Luis Binks when our Development Squad returns to Leasing.com Trophy action away to Gillingham on Tuesday night.

Born in the Kent town, the 18-year-old lives just around the corner from Priestfield, where he used to be a season ticket holder and where his mum Jo still works as part of the club’s backroom staff.

Add in the fact that most of his family will be there to watch and one of his best friends at school could be playing in goal for the League One side against us and you can see why the game is shaping up to be a memorable one for the talented centre-back, who has impressed for our Development Squad in recent weeks, despite still technically being an Under-18s player.

“It’s going to mean an awful lot to play there if I’m selected,” said the youngster ahead of our third and final group stage game in the tournament, where Under-21 sides from Premier League clubs get the chance to take on senior Football League opponents in a competitive environment.

“My mum has worked there since she left school, doing all the venue bookings in the offices, my uncle played in the youth system and our house is five minutes from the ground so I’ve got a lot of connections down there. Every year, when I was younger, I used to get the Gillingham kit and I remember going to Wembley to watch them in the League Two play-off final against Shrewsbury (in 2009) – Simeon Jackson scored the winner to take them into League One.

“Even now, if I have a weekend off I try to go and watch them. Last week I went down there on my own when they played Rotherham. For me, it’s quite a big occasion now to have the possibility of playing there and I’ll have lots of family in the crowd – my younger sister, aunt, uncle, all my cousins, grandparents, friends – but I’ll prepare in the same way I would for any other game and hopefully we get the three points. We need a win to go through so the mindset for us all is just to go there and win the game.”

Our former defender Connor Ogilvie now plays for the Gills and could feature against us on Tuesday, along with someone Luis knows well: “One of my good friends from school is hopefully playing in goal – Joe Walsh,” he said. “We actually played for the same Sunday League team (Thamesview) – he went to Gillingham and I went to Tottenham. Obviously I know Connor from here at Spurs as well, although he’s a bit older than me. Last year we had a pre-season friendly against Swindon where I played centre-half and he was at left-back so I played next to him then.”

Luis has enjoyed a run-out at Priestfield before, back in his junior days when the club held half-term soccer schools on the pitch: “I scored an own goal there when I was about six – my mum walked out of the office to watch on her lunch break, I looked over at her and the ball hit me and went in! That’s a true story, but I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again!” he laughed.

The former Howard School pupil missed out on the chance to play a more senior game there when we were pitted against the Gills in this competition last season, though: “I came on for the last 10 minutes but it was held at Charlton because Gillingham were having their pitch re-laid,” he said. “We won 4-0 so I hope for more of the same this time, although we can’t reflect back on that game because Gillingham have got a new team, we’ve got a new team and obviously no game is the same, like we saw with Red Star Belgrade last week (we lost 2-0 in the UEFA Youth League after beating them heavily at home), so we’ve got to go there with the right mindset. It’s the same as normal in the sense that it’s another game that we’re trying to win to progress. We won on penalties at Colchester last time, who are a good team and doing well in the cups, so it’s good to know that we can compete at that level and we’ll take a lot of confidence from that.”

We’re third in Southern Group A going into Tuesday night’s action, two points behind second-placed Colchester, who host leaders Ipswich. Kick-off in our match is at 7pm. Tickets for Spurs fans are available on the night.