Tony Goes Dutch

Tony Carr says the annual ADO tournament in Holland will provide a useful precursor for the new Academy campaign which starts in just over a week.

The squad flew out on Thursday and, speaking from Holland, Tony says:

"We play Club Bruges, whose first team have had a lot of European football, we play the local team, Den Haag, who we have played in the European Cup Winners' Cup some years ago as some may remember, and we play Trelleborgs of Sweden.

"If we come first or second we progress to the semi-final so it will be a good experience for the players and it might be as many as five games in a short period.

"The games are only 30 minutes each way but it is a good tournament to set us up nicely for the season starting next week.

"There are only two players out of the 18, Bunce and Wright, that have been here before, so it is new for most of them."

Kevin Keen's schoolboy team drew 1-1 with Wycombe in a friendly and Tony adds:

"We had a lot of trialists, so from that point of view it sorted one or two of them out."

Tony was impressed by Moses Ashikodi's first competitive outing for West Ham's reserves this week, with Moses scoring the only goal of the game to beat Crystal Palace.

"It was a good goal; I think Palace might consider themselves a bit unlucky with an experienced forward line," says Tony, "but we got the goal that mattered - to make it two good wins in two days, with the first team winning as well."