Martin Ho on new deal: ‘It’s a big sign of support… now we can build something special’

Martin Ho says the Club can ‘build something really special’ as he penned a new, long-term deal.

Arriving in north London last summer, after two successful years in Norway with SK Brann, it has been a memorable first year as a Head Coach for Spurs and his maiden spell in the Women’s Super League in that role.

With five games left to play in England’s top flight, Martin has guided us to fifth place in the current standings, just three points shy of our best-ever points tally in a single campaign (32 in 2021/22) and became our second Head Coach to claim the league’s Manager of the Month award in February.

Having made an instant impact in his first year at the helm, previously having spells as an Assistant Manager at this level, our Head Coach was delighted to feel the support after being rewarded with a new contract.

“It's a really big sign of support, love and care from the Club,” Martin told us. “It’s big backing from the leadership above me, the owners, so I'm very thankful for the opportunity to stay. You feel you're part of what they want to build now and in the future, you feel you can contribute to that.

“Speaking with Vinai [Venkatesham], with Andy [Rogers] and the wider club in terms of the ambitions of the team and the road map we're on in terms of where we want to get to objectively, they asked me would there be an opportunity to look at a renewal on my contract and extend, which is a really nice feeling.

“I'm just glad I'm able to play that small percentage in the ambitions and the growth the owners in the club have and making sure that I can play my part as a coach to make sure as a football team we are efficient, we're effective and we're competitive.”

Feeling the support from everyone in and around the Club, Martin is keen to build for the future and continue to evolve the team as we challenge the teams further up the table in the WSL.

“I know that we have all the support from them above us to make sure that we can achieve what we want to,” he added. “The facilities are getting bigger and better, the squad is evolving and developing and when that happens, I think when you put those together, with the support from the owners and the leadership group, you can build something really special.

“It’s just making sure now that we can build something really special here and we can continue to evolve as a team, evolve as a club, and commercially and then marketing-wise, we can become a real brand for a lot of partners and a lot of sponsors.”

Taking on his maiden Head Coach role at SK Brann in 2023, where he led the Norwegian side to league success and also a positive UEFA Women’s Champions League campaign in 2022/23, the 35-year-old returned to England to lead our squad for his first role in the WSL and admitted it has been a learning process throughout the campaign.

“It's my first job in England, in the biggest league and the best league in the world in my opinion, and I've been able to settle in now in the first six or seven months,” he added. “I've learnt a lot about myself, about wider management and leadership in a Club, about direction and growth of a team, but also then about myself as a Head Coach and how I want to be, how I need to look, how I want my team to look, how I want my team to behave, and then away from that how I want the infrastructure around me to be.

“How we operate as staff; our behaviours, attitude, the level of detail and refined detail we go into as individuals to make every player's experience authentic and unique to them, and then making sure on the pitch we can back that up with performance, and we evolve those performances along the way to create really solid foundations now that going into next year we can build on top of.

“If you see what we've done in a short space of time, and credit to the players and staff, they do all the work behind the scenes to make sure that the players have all the information and support, whether that's materialistic or resource, or that's just hands-on support from a member of staff, to make sure that they can go on the pitch and perform.”