“It’s a really exciting time!” – Rehanne Skinner’s first interview

Rehanne Skinner is relishing her appointment as the new Head Coach of Spurs Women, declaring: “It’s such an exciting opportunity!”

The former England assistant boss and Head Coach of the national Under-18 to Under-21 set-up earlier this month joined us on a contract that runs until the end of the 2022/23 season, and has now begun working with the squad full-time after returning from her final England camp today (Sunday 29 November).

Vastly experienced at club level in addition to her work with the Lionesses, Rehanne underlined how she’s determined to “hit the ground running” when we return to action in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League against Brighton & Hove Albion next weekend, following the international break.

“I’m absolutely delighted to be here,” she beamed. “I think it’s a fantastic club and a fantastic opportunity with some really ambitious and positive plans that will definitely help to elevate the women’s game.

“I’m passionate about the women’s game and working with players that are able to go on to achieve success. For me, it’s a really exciting time. I think it’s important to look at where the club has come from and the foundations that were built from the previous managers – that’s really important here, and now we’re just looking to move things forward even further.

“With the conversations I’ve had coming into this role, there’s so much positivity and growth around the women’s game, there’s so much investment into it and the plans for the future are so significant – I’m really happy to hear how the club is embracing the women’s team and how much they want to move it forward in the Spurs family. Off the back of that, I think it’s just such an exciting opportunity for me. It’s really important to mention that the squad that’s here already has got huge potential and for me, that’s something that was really attractive in terms of coming here as well. Being in the training ground too, it’s a fantastic training ground and you couldn’t really ask for more in terms of facilities. I’ve had a grand tour which was outstanding. There are loads of positives!”

Coaches Anton Blackwood, Shaun Harris and WSL Academy Manager Laura Kaminski have overseen training this week, prior to Rehanne taking the reins. Now that she’s begun working with our players on a full-time basis, what does our new boss believe are her main strengths as a coach?

“For anybody that knows me, I’m quite a detailed and organised person – it’s just one of the things that I focus on,” she explained. “I think it helps to be prepared going into games, it helps players to have some role clarity and I like to try to provide that as much as possible, but I think the biggest thing is making sure that players take ownership of those aspects. For me, decision-making, ability, leadership qualities and accountability is absolutely massive for players and that’s the thing that then helps you to solve problems quickly in games. Everything I do off the pitch as well as on the pitch is to try and guide opportunities for players to evolve in that way, so that they’re in a better position to compete at the highest level and perform when it really matters. I find it’s really important to work on building relationships with players and staff as well. I spend a lot of time on trying to develop those relationships and understand the person first and the player second. We want to try to provide a top-quality environment that enables players to thrive to the best of their ability.”

Having represented Middlesbrough and Leicester City as a player, Rehanne subsequently spent 11 years with the Foxes in a coaching and organisational capacity as they established their women’s set-up and climbed through the leagues on a journey that bears certain similarities to our own history.

“Obviously we started at the bottom as well and we had to achieve four successive promotions in order to get into the Women’s Premier League, so much like what’s gone on here, it’s taken time,” she continued. “The growth of the game has taken time, obviously the fanbase has increased dramatically and the positives around England and their involvement in tournaments have certainly elevated the game. During that time I’ve gone from having a full-time job doing a Community Manager role and coaching teams of an evening, to now walking through a door where you’re full-time professionals and the game has grown significantly to allow us to be able to do that. In and around all of that, I’ve pretty much always been involved in international football since 2006 in various age groups, which has obviously helped me to understand elite performance environments and what it’s going to take to win at the highest level, so hopefully those experiences, the club element and being in the Champions League (during a spell on the coaching staff at Arsenal), developing the structure at Leicester, going into international environments and playing against top nations in tournaments – all of those things have given me a really good background and understanding of all the different aspects of the game that I hope will help me to deliver the best possible programme here for Tottenham.”

Beneficially for all concerned, Rehanne has worked with many of our players before. Last season’s top scorer Rianna Dean, Jess Naz, Chloe Peplow and Angela Addison all played for her in the England youth set-up, Kerys Harrop worked with her at Team GB in the World Student Games, Rachel Williams came through at Leicester under her tutelage and both Gemma Davison and Becky Spencer played on the red half of north London during Rehanne’s time there as Assistant Manager.

“I’ve spoken to Becky in training and we were working out how long ago it was!” she smiled. “I worked with Becky and Gemma between 2010 and 2013, so it’s been about seven years for them. Rachel Williams came into the Centre of Excellence programme at Leicester at 14, so we’re almost going full circle and back to the start! Obviously it’s great to touch base with those players that I’ve worked with in the past and more recently Rianna Dean, Jess Naz, Angela Addison and Chloe Peplow have obviously been in an England set-up at Under-19 or Under-21 level, so I know a lot about them in terms of how they play already and them as people, so it’s just kind of a reconnection with them, which is nice. Obviously there’s a big chunk of the squad that I don’t know and that’s going to be really key for me, to get to know them to the same level as quickly as possible, so we can start functioning as effectively as possible together.”

Finally, what does Rehanne hope to achieve with us?

“I think there’s always the results side of things and progressing through to the top of the table,” she said. “We’ve got to look at where we are right now in terms of a club and build on the foundations that have been put in place. Obviously we want to finish in the top half of the table, that’s something that I’ve spoken to the players about already and it’s something that would be a great step for a club that’s relatively new to the WSL at this stage. I say the club is relatively new but the players are incredibly experienced so we’ve got to bring that out, move forward and push on to be competing with those teams at the top of the table. There have obviously been some results that have been fairly close, so the players are showing that they’ve got the ability to do that and now we’ve just got to get some consistency and also some belief in our ability. That’s going to be really important because the players are really good, top-quality players – we’ve got to get that belief in the squad and belief in each individual to get the best out of them, so that we’re in a position to go and compete with those teams (at the top of the table) on a week-to-week basis – that’s the main thing for us now.”