Orient lost every single game journalist and lifelong fan James Masters attended last season. Here he writes about how close we came to losing much more than football matches – and the renewed hope he has for the club's future...
By the end, I was numb.
Try as hard as I might, I could not feel
a thing.
What I longed for was some sense of anger,
of frustration. What I got was silence.
What I yearned for was the rage of
burning injustice to ignite and spark off a reaction inside the empty
chasm which I had become.
But there was nothing. What I had
held so dear for so long had been taken from me.
In a world where there is so much horror
and tragedy, it seems trivial to lose oneself over one man's unerring quest to
decimate a football club and raze it to the ground.
Perhaps it is churlish, when you
consider the brutality of the world in which we live, to consider the desperate
plight of one's football club in such grandiose terms.
And yet, perhaps it is
precisely because we live in a world where there is such a constant source
of upheaval and doubt, that the opportunity to escape from the toil of
daily life, is so important.
For some that solace comes through
prayer or meditation. For others it may be exercise, reading, or travel.
I make no secret of the fact that for
many years now, Orient has been the source of my escapism.
Orient allowed me to forget. It washed
over my fears of social awkwardness, my own foibles, and provided the
opportunity to cast my worries aside and instead focus on the most important
of the world’s trivialities, Orient.
And yet, for the past three years, that
has been so very difficult both in terms of results, and in terms of losing
that one place where you can lose yourself. I lost my happy place.
Even now, some 30 years on from my first
ever visit, I can still remember the spark of excitement in the pit of my
stomach which rose upon the sight of Brisbane Road. Never did I imagine a
time where that spark would be extinguished.
But I do not want to dwell on the
past few years. We’ve spoken about it, dissected every minute detail and
replayed it over and over in our minds. There is little we can do to change it
now.
Instead, it is time to look forward, gathering the lessons of the
disastrous era and ensuring they are never forgotten. For while the past may be
painful to look back upon, to commit the same mistakes once again would be
folly. Now, there is only way to look and that is forward.
What this season will bring is beyond
any of our wisdom. From a logical point of view, it would take something
remarkable for a team full of new players with barely a few weeks of
pre-season under their belt to achieve promotion this year.
I do not doubt
the quality or spirit of the squad, nor the expertise of the management, but
factors such as continuity and time are crucial to long-term success, two
luxuries we have not been able to enjoy. Let us not run before we can walk.
That aside, a season of
stability bordering on the boring dare I say, would be rather welcome. For
all the unrest and upheaval of the past three years, an opportunity to start
again, to gather ourselves and re-establish the club should not be dismissed
lightly.
Of course, promotion and an instant return to the Football League
would be wonderful, a dream, something all of us are working towards. But there
must also be a level of realisation of the situation we find ourselves in.
The
new owners have already pledged they are here for the long term, the return of
Martin Ling and Matthew Porter are two pieces of business which although
simple, underline their understanding of this club.
Over 3,500 season tickets have been
sold, a remarkable number given Orient’s dreadful past few years and the fact
this will be their first season in non-league football for 112 years. But
the drop into non-league football was never likely to deter those who hold
Orient so dear for it has never been about the football, has it?
It’s about having our club back. It’s
about looking forward to your weekends again, making new memories, sharing
laughs with friends, travelling around the country in hope rather than
resignation.
It’s about the singing, the last minute winners, the grotesque
burger vans which have you checking your armpits as the smell wafts through the
air. It’s about being where you want to be, reclaiming your pride and valuing
that sense of belonging.
Now, more than ever, that sense of
belonging is crucial. It is crucial because we lost it. It was taken from us,
right in front of our very noses and at the time it seemed there was little
that we could do about it. And yet, at our lowest ebb, we were there, together. The small club with a big heart – the heart which belongs to all
of us – the fans – got going once again.
I will never be able to express my
gratitude to LOFT for all the work they have done. To those who organised the
protests, the fundraising, the social media campaigns and the constant
television and radio interviews, this is because of you.
To the football fans
from hundreds of other clubs across the world who gave us their support in our
time of need to the journalists who helped spread our story, this is all
because of you.
It is because of those staff members who stayed even when
they were not being paid because they believed that something good would come
of all this. Even when some staff members were forced to leave their homes
because they couldn’t afford the rent, they left only out of desperation and
with a sadness in their stomachs.
The staff and the supporters refused to
give in to a man who was so hell bent on destruction, he could not see what was
right in front of him – a group who never gives up.
Forget the team from 2013 – it’s our
slogan now. We’re the group who never gives up. Every single supporter knows
how close we came to losing our club, we will not let a day go by where we do
not appreciate what we have.
And so if you take anything from the
past few years, take this thought. For however chastening the past few
years have been, however many times you have felt helpless, bewildered and disenfranchised, we won out.
It was not the way we wanted it. Nobody would have
wanted relegation from the Football League unless it meant the end of
Becchetti. That the two coincided was more his doing than ours. But we’re still
here, and he’s not.
It’s our club. It will always be our
club. It belongs to every single one of us who were ever fortunate enough to be
introduced to Leyton Orient. We may never be as big as Arsenal or Tottenham, nor
as successful as Manchester United, but being a Leyton Orient fan has never
been about the football alone. It’s about belonging, having a club we can each
call our own.
When we return to Brisbane Road on
Tuesday night for our first home game in the National League, we will come back
together at the start of the next chapter. It’s in our hands now and the
future is what we make of it. It is ours to shape.
So, when you take your seat,
say hello to the person who sits next to you, take your time to soak in the
atmosphere and the new season feel. And then, take a breath, and perhaps allow
yourself to realise just how lucky we are to have our Orient back, or any
Orient at all.
