Tottenham to open training center to players for limited workouts, beginning Tuesday

Tottenham Hotspur announced today that they will be the third Premier League club to re-open its training center to first team players for exercise purposes, but with some very important restrictions and caveats.

Starting Tuesday, the club will allow access to several training ground pitches to individual players who can come and run on a grass field. Only one player will be allowed access to any one of the training pitches, they must maintain social distancing guidelines, and only a limited number of players will be given access to the training center each day.

Each player will travel independently and arrive at the facilities already dressed in training wear before returning home immediately after they have concluded their session.

All activity will be conducted in line with government guidelines with social distancing maintained at all times and there will be no access permitted to any building on site.

—Announcement, Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs are following a path begun by fellow London clubs Arsenal and West Ham, both of whom have opened their training grounds to first team players in the past few days. For all of these clubs, it will benefit not only players who might not have access to high quality gyms or exercise equipment in their homes, but also those who want to start doing some ball work on a professional quality pitch again. Just the act of coming to the training ground to work with the ball and (fackin’) run around a bit can have an impact on the state of mind of athletes who have been stuck at home for weeks now.

It’s not known whether this will apply to first team members of Tottenham Hotspur Women, but I hope it does — the WSL is also hoping to restart at some point late spring or summer to finish its season, and access to training ground pitches should be given to all Spurs first team athletes.