The club announced three new signings today. They all played in the training match about a week ago, and it seems that the coaching staff is as impressed with them as I was.

On Saturday TamU-K played a training match against a team consisting of players from three different local clubs. The venue was Pyynikki Stadium, so it was nice to come back to the venue of our promotion just about a month later. At some point during the second half I counted 23 people in the stand, so attendance was quite respectable for a November training match of a sixth tier club.

TamU-K returned to the training field on Sunday, and with that preparations for the 2013 season are in full force. In addition to the seven players who have already been signed for next season, there are twenty other players training with TamU-K during the winter. Ten of these are returning TamU-K players from last season, and ten are new to the club.

The off-season has barely begun, but the club has been very active already. The first announcement came on Tuesday, when Mika Suonsyrjä was announced as the new head coach. This choice was certainly met with enthusiasm by the supporters. Suonsyrjä has shown just the kind of attitude on the field that the supporters expect from everybody on the team. He demands a lot of himself and expects the same from others. A leader as a player, but also has coaching experience that goes back several years. He also seems to understand and share the ideals of the club, which is very important. Moreover, having already spent a season with the team, he provides continuity. Next year he will be a player-coach for TamU-K, so expect to see him crushing opponents’ legs at the bottom of the midfield next year too.

Yesterday there was a news article on the Finnish side of tamu-k.com that included several high quality shots from the promotion final match. We were lucky enough to have a professional photographer from Studio Amanda at the match, and they have kindly given us permission to use those photos here on the site. I’ll just post one of them here, and you can go on to the article itself to see the more. Studio Amanda also has the full set of images in their web gallery, and they can make prints for very reasonable prices.

A few players were awarded by the supporters, the chairman of the club, and the coaching staff on Saturday. The supporters’ awards have a history going back to 2002, always chosen by a vote announced on Sinikaarti’s discussion board. In a club owned by supporters, they are probably the most prestigious awards of them all.

What a dramatic night that was. TamU-K played in front of a record attendance of 441, and when Jose Chemlal scored the 2-0 goal on the 60th minute, you could feel how the whole stadium was certain of victory. And then suddenly they weren’t anymore. Just about ten minutes later the match was 2-2, and surely everybody was imagining how promotion could slip away in the most painful way possible. And then our Bosnian Ox came to the rescue. The two goals scored by Adnan Omerovic sealed the deal. World class finishing by him and world class celebrations by the supporters.

On Sunday TamU-K has everything on the line. Personally, I have been dreaming about promotion to Vitonen for more than a year now. In two days we’ll be playing the match that can finally make this dream come true.

This video clip from yesterday’s FC PaPo match just came out from Sinikaarti. Amazing stuff. This is how I like to express my everlasting love to Tampere United.

Sunday was such a perfect day for our club. That wouldn’t of course have been the case without the 3-1 victory over FC PaPo on the field, but what made the day perfect was everything surrounding the match. The attendance at Pyynikki Stadium was estimated at about 200, and the flood lights in the darkening night provided a setting where it was easy for us to create the best atmosphere we’ve had the whole season.