No. 31: Brisbane Road [Leyton Orient]

Saturday, 17th October 2015
Leyton Orient v. Oxford United [League 2] 2-2

After a couple of weeks' enforced absence from football (work and illness, it wasn't deliberate), I was never going to miss this weekend's clash between my Oxford and Leyton Orient - two teams vying for promotion from League Two this season.

It had the added edge of being the clubs' first meeting since May 2006, when Orient's win sent them up to League One, as their fans danced on the pitch as Oxford were relegated out of the football League with fans crying in the stands.

May 2006: Orient on pitch at Oxford

Online forums were full of talk of the slight some Oxford fans felt at the pitch-dancing at our expense a decade ago. Bit silly really, isn't it? After all, any group of fans would have done the same and I think it was mostly joy at their own promotion prompting the pitch invasion, rather than schadenfreude at Oxford's misery. The Orient fans were dancers, not fighters that day.

Certainly, one group of Orient season ticket-holders I spoke to in the pub before the game weren't even aware there was any acrimony - so the expected 'needle' of this game might have been a little one-sided.

The day started with an early train to Paddington and a Central line tube ride across the centre of London to the east end.

The last time I visited Leyton was for a blind date 10 years ago. I met my fully-sighted date at the tube station where she suggested we save money by her cooking for me at her place. I had no reservations about this of course. Then she locked me in her room, served me up pasta with cat food in it and told me how she'd tried to kill herself twice that week.

Leyton Underground Station, Central Line.

We didn't have a second date, but I was still concerned she might be waiting for me as I stepped off the tube onto Leyton High Road. Thankfully she wasn't, and my first impressions of Leyton were swept aside quite quickly as I strolled down a regenerated high street that was a far cry from the dodgy east end I remember before the Olympics landed on the doorstep.

It's not quite Hoxton or Shoreditch yet - before the breakfast cereal cafes and art college drop-outs take up residence you'd be pushed to call it 'gentrified' in the same way as those hipster black spots. But having the transport and shopping hub of Stratford and the Olympic Park so close, investment here has house prices shooting upwards and the lumberjack beards and skinny-jeaned dudes are just around the corner.

Leyton Technical: Cracking Little Pub.

Hipster base camp has already been established though - in the form of The Leyton Technical. A remarkable restoration of the old town hall, this trendy spot has marbled mosiac floors, drapes, refurbished chandeliers and most importantly of all, craft beers & real ales. As soon as I saw they did pretty decent pub grub as well, I knew I was set for pre-match in here.

I took up a position in the window with a beer, a burger and the match day programme (already having scouted out the ground when I first got here) and sat there waiting for the hordes to arrive.

Pre-Match in Leyton: Technically Excellent. Inset: Pratchett Loving, Craft-Beer Swiller.

If ever the charge that football fans are all slathering, knuckle-headed hooligans were true, the clientele in The Technical that early Saturday morning refuted it. My neighbour at the next table with an Orient scarf around his neck, was sat alone drinking a craft ale and reading a Terry Pratchett novel!

Ha ha, what a saddo I thought, as I sat there swilling ale from a pint jug and reading a sci-fi novel on my own, waiting for someone I knew to turn up.

Back of the East Stand, housing the away fans. Brisbane Road.

They did turn up though, and after a couple more beers in their company we made the five-minute walk up the High Road to Brisbane Road, or as it's known today for sponsorship nonsense, The Matchroom Stadium.

This is quite a unique stadium, featuring as it does three unique-looking stands. The main West Stand, opened in 2005, is probably the most unusual.

The Main West Stand, viewed from away seats opposite.

From the outside it looks like a cross between a modern football stand and a modern office block. From inside it looks like a modern football stand with a 1970s factory building on top of it. The hospitality section appears to be on a gantry overhanging the seats below, with a separate gallery above two rows of office windows which houses the cameras and press. It's an odd disjointed looking affair.

Then there are the North and South stands behind the goal, parts of which were sold away to property developers over the past decade who have grafted flats onto the back of each stand and filled in the corners with more flats.

Back of the South Stand: Turnstiles & Flats.

It does seem a bit weird to see football turnstiles in-between entrances to modern flats, then look up to notice people sat in their dressing gowns on balconies having a morning coffee as the fans file into the stand beneath them. But it's probably the future for a lot of smaller clubs - especially the likes of Leyton Orient owning a ground in an area with such a high land value on the outskirts of London.

South Stand: Brisbane Road. With flats above.

And I have to say - it doesn't look all that bad to be honest, and as a money-spinner for a lower-league club you can't really argue against it. Plus you could always buy one and save yourself buying a season ticket by sitting on the balcony and watching the game with a beer - like a few people did this afternoon in fact.

Old & New at Brisbane Road: Facades of West and (inset) East Stands.

The Oxford fans were housed in the southern end of the East Stand, the oldest remaining part of the ground, originally opened back in 1956. Apart from the fact plastic seats have been bolted onto the concrete and wooden base of the stand, it's still pretty original in there.

Packed Under-Stand @Half-Time.

It was a struggle to navigate your way around the stand squeezing past people. There are inadequate toilets in a dingy, dimly-lit area underneath the rickety old stand, where you queue for 20 mins just for the pleasure of pissing against a painted brick wall before risking a lukewarm hot dog of dubious origins from a portable kiosk just next to the bogs.

This is how football should be, of course!

Certainly, the 1,400 travelling yellows were able to create quite an atmosphere from the low roof and cramped conditions, singing throughout the afternoon.

There was also a good game to aid the creation of that atmosphere, with a pretty even first 15 mins or so of decent football from both sides. But it was Oxford's loanee Jordan Graham who was terrorising the Orient left-back early on with a succession of wonderfully whipped-in balls from the right - it was clear one of them was going to do damage sooner or later and sure enough, one found a man in the prolific Kemar Roofe 16 minutes in to put the visitors into the lead.

Just after the half-hour and it was 2-0 - a wicked deflection from a Lundstram bolt from outside the box, and Oxford were cruising.

Cheeky Oxford Fan Taunts The Orient.

Perhaps Oxford cruised just a little too early, and in the early exchanges of the second half Orient punished Oxford's lack of urgency after the break by pulling one back on 64 minutes.

Then - disaster for the visitors when the man who had threatened Orient all afternoon was sent for an early bath for kicking the ball away. A very soft second yellow but now Oxford were on the back foot and Orient had their tails in the air.

Ten-man Oxford could have made it 3-1 mind you - midfield powerhouse Liam Sercombe had his screaming effort tipped away by Orient's Aussie keeper Cisak, when it seemed destined for the bottom corner ten minutes from time.

In the end though, you just knew it was coming from the home side - and true enough a minute into injury time and Scott Kashket bagged the equaliser - celebrated by the home side as a winner after looking dead and buried at half-time.

Oxford attack the North Stand end, viewed from East Stand away section.

And so the Oxford fans left the ground to the sound of Orient fans singing "two-nil up and you fucked it up!" in our ears. Ahh, bollocks. But that's football, isn't it?

Other than that, and having long since forgiven these East Enders for their foray onto our pitch 10 years ago, I quite like Leyton Orient. They are the oft-forgotten and unfashionable east London team, in the shadow of their near-neighbours West Ham a little perhaps.

Surprising then, that their neighbours' impending move just one tube stop and two miles away to Stratford and the Olympic Stadium doesn't seem to bother the Orient fans I spoke to. As far as these guys at least are concerned, ex-owner Barry Hearn was the one complaining about the West Ham move, and now he was gone from Orient, they were happy to just move on.

"They can get on over there with a half-full stadium once the novelty has worn off and we'll carry on getting 5,000 or so in Brisbane Road every week. Them being a couple of miles closer won't make a difference - the wankers who want to watch them would go anyway!"

Well, time will certainly tell.

I finished my time in the east end with a few beers and meal with the wife in Westfield Stratford. At the moment the only sign of what is coming being a shop where you can choose season tickets for the Olympic Stadium next year.

West Ham Season Ticket Shop: Stratford.

For now at least this part of the Lea Valley still belongs to Leyton Orient. But I can't help feeling it's wishful thinking that West Ham's move won't affect them though.

Either way, I look forward to visiting again next season with Oxford for a League One fixture, and discussing the continuing gentrification of the area with Orient fans over an organic feta and pulled pork flatbread, before washing it down with a Fairtade latte and heading off to the game.

Progress, eh? Who needs it!

Next Up --- TBC!