I saw yesterday that our 20 year old number 25 - John Anthony Brooks has signed a contract to stay at Hertha until 2017. Another piece of good news as he has been developing nicely over the last season.

The son of an American serviceman he was born in Berlin and has come up through Hertha ranks. It's always good to see a local lad do well and at six foot four he is a useful player to have at the back.

I hope he continues to develop next season and helps the old lady at least keep up if not thrive in 2013/14.

In a mad flurry of waffle the fixtures list for the Bundesliga in the 2013/14 season were released this morning and Hertha kick off the season at home against Eintracht Frankkfurt.  That's a great result, I really wanted to start at home.

I've added a copy of the Spielplan below for anyone who doesn't feel the need to go to the Bundesliga.de site.  I've also added a table listing just the Hertha home games with a column for notes on ticket and flight prices for those coming from outside Germany. 

More later . .

The draw for the DFB Pokal 2013/14 is going to be made in just a few days. It is going to be made live on the ARD Sportschau on Saturday the 15th of June. The programme starts at 18:00 CET (17:00 BST) and goes on until 18:50.

Hertha didn't do so well last year and perhaps in a strange way that was no bad thing. We needed to concentrate on the league and getting promoted.

We still need to make sure we stay up next season, that must be the absolute number one priority but still, a little cup run would be nice . .  

When it came down to it we had to wait until the the last ball of the draw to find out that Hertha are matched against VFR Neumünster (Wikipedia entry) from the Regionalliga Nord (fourth tier league). We'll have to see how we but not too long to wait until the first weekend of August - Ha Ho He

Following the press conference we will all be able to download the official schedule as a PDF from bundesliga.com. I doubt it will be immediate but it will be during the course of the afternoon.

I for one am looking forward to it!

ThIs time it is the BZ, publishing stories about possible transfers in the summer for Hertha. So far the bill comes to €1,000,000 for three players but Jos is looking for more - hopefully either on loan or on a free transfer. Two of the three so far have been free and only Hosogai having a fee.

It is reported that Jos is looking for a playmaker and perhaps a fast right wing. It appears, or so it is reported, that the following are the hottest candidates:

-  Bavaria's Mitchell Weiser (19),
-  K'lauterns Alexander Baumjohann (26)
-  Dortmund Moritz Leitner (20)

Press speculation about the first three signings were pretty accurate. We will see who, if any of these three end up in Berlin.
As always time will tell . . .

The Bild and goal.com/de also reported that the old Hertha favourite Jaroslav Drobný might have been returning to the Olympiastadion from HSV.

He was a good keeper for The Old Lady back in 2009 however, time has moved on and Thomas Kraft has more than proved himself in both ability and loyalty to the club. This press speculation proved to be groundless on this occasion as he later signed again for HSV.

The press are not without some insight however as Alexander Baumjohann signed for Hertha from Kaiserlautern on the 6th of June to add a useful offensive aspect to the Old Ladies midfield.

Welcome Alexander - Ha Ho He!

It looks like that wraps it up and we now know the squad we have for the new season with the addition of four new players - three of them on free transfers and 1,000,000€ for the remainder.

It has been released by BVB via both their website and their official Twitter account that the schedule for the 2013/14 Bundedliga season will be released in just over two weeks - on Friday the 21st of June.

Not long to wait now yay! :)