Cod Almighty | Diary

No one could possibly wish Orient anything other than well, after tonight

2 March 2021

Impossible not to like Leyton Orient. Impossible not to hope they won't roll over and play dead for us tonight.

Middle-Aged Diary lived in London for a couple of stints 30 years ago. I really don't miss it, but just now I wouldn't mind being transported to that huge bank of an away terrace they used to have. I'd even go back and applaud Kevin Campbell tearing through a callow, leggy defence soon after our 1989 FA Cup run - we had faint hopes of making the play-offs, until we lost 5-0 -  if that's what it takes to get the O's onside with our escape plans.

Give me the choice though and it would be two years later. A couple of bad results had eroded the certainty of promotion to the second flight and we went to Brisbane Road needing a win. I worked a couple of miles away, and among my colleagues was someone from Grimsby - not really a football fan, let alone a Town fan, but he'd got caught up in the excitement. Strange forces were at work that day. The way everyone froze except Garry Birtles when a Steve Sherwood clearance fell to him just before half time to put us one up. The way I remember our second was the result of John Cockerill driving at their defence, sucking in men, even though the video evidence shows it was nothing of the kind. The way an Orient player casually slapped a penalty way, way, way over the bar. We met another colleague - an O's supporter - as we were leaving the ground. He had that wry good humour in adversity which is their hallmark.

Whether we bring the best out of Orient I couldn't say - for tonight's purposes I hope not - but perhaps they bring the best out of us. Years later, when we were up and they were down, we met in a two-legged League Cup tie. We won the first leg so easily the second was almost a formality, and sure enough we lost 1-0. We waited until injury time on a dire performance, when there was no lingering possibility of our aggregate win being overturned, before starting up a chant of "What's it like to be out-classed."

Irrelevant, when there'll be no fans there tonight, but for that reason all the more relevant - a marker of a culture that is not dead, only dormant. I live in Manchester now, and among the places I feel homesick for - the sun setting over Cardigan Bay, the No2 Refreshment Rooms after a Town win - I'll add the away end at Leyton Orient, a symbol of what we are missing.

For the next month, Montel Gibson will be plying his trade not far from me in Altrincham, and if things were different I'd be promising to go see him in action. In his couple of appearances for us - most tellingly at Orient, in fact - he demonstrated definite determination. Whether he can be a Football League standard forward remains to be seen, but he and we deserve better than his three-year contract with us turning into a custodial sentence.

Good luck to him, good luck to us and, after tonight, good luck to the Orient.

Want more?

Read "Give it to Gary" - Tony Butcher's reminscences of being in the same school team as Gary Lund.