FA Trophy Final: Leyton Orient 0 AFC Fylde 1, 19/5/19

A game in which... the Orient players staggered onto the pitch ravaged physically, mentally and emotionally by the demands of a three-week post-promotion bender. Just hours before kick off Dean Brill was wearing nothing but body paint and glitter as he danced at a Full Moon party on Koh Pha-ngan beach; Craig Clay was in the 56th hour of a psychotropic experience with local shamans in the jungles of Bolivia; Matt Harrold was lying face-down in a pool of his own bodily fluids in a Berlin crack den; and James Brophy was stumbling up and down Leyton High Road with a bottle of blue WKD and a half-eaten kebab wondering where everyone else had gone.



AFC Fylde, predictably, took advantage and created almost a million chances in the first half, though curiously failed to convert any of them. Their second-half goal was enough to clinch it for them, however, despite the Orient team somehow finding hitherto unknown reserves of strength to mount some sort of fight back. Hey ho.

Moment of magic... Do you remember that time Joe Widdowson nearly scored a goal? That's right, it was against Braintree just a matter of weeks ago. I mean, when I say "nearly" obviously I mean "was on a football pitch during a game in which it was not theoretically impossible that he could be the last object a ball connected with before crossing the goal line". Funny thing is, Joe actually nearly scored a goal at Wembley. Read that again and question every facet of your entire existence. He even hit the post. Somewhere in an alternate universe Joe Widdowson is banging in 25 a season, surely?

Praise be... So when I mentioned that Orient mounted some sort of fight back in the second half, what I should have said was simply "Jordan Maguire-Drew came on" for the winger single-handedly took on all team responsibilities – including defending, attacking, goal-keeping, tactics, hydration and physiotherapy – for the entire 45 minutes. He hit the post too, goddammit, with a cheeky free kick.

Taxi for... Wembley. And Orient's "Wembley curse". We've now played there probably 30 or 40 times (*checks*: ok, it's three) and lost on every occasion. With that and the stadium's outrageous policy of charging the same price for beer as a London pub and refusing to allow anyone other than origami experts to bring bags in, it all amounted to a terrible day out for Os fans. And when I say fans I actually mean only the "magnificent" seven people who were sent a text message by Alan Bowers during his failed takeover bid of the club. The rest of us 24,000 part-timers who haven't been to every single game since 1881 deserved everything we got.



And so what does this result tell us about next season? Well, fan opinion seems to be divided between "WE'RE DEFINITELY GOING TO BE RELEGATED" and "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE GOING TO BE RELEGATED I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU" so it's good to see that promotion and a day out at Wembley haven't stifled healthy debate. Personally I'm torn between the result telling us either nothing, nada or fuck all.

And a word for those departing... Shame about Alex Lawless since I never got to describe an unblemished performance of his as "flawless", but in all seriousness he never let us down and had a beard. Good vibes to Jay Simpson and Charlie Grainger too, and let's not forget that Orient were unbeaten in 23 of the 26 games in which James Alabi featured. Hashtag impact.

But let's leave the last word for Charlie Lee. Whatever happens next season, we now won't be singing "We all love Charlie" except in the event we sign another player called Charlie who we love, which could happen. If not any popular player named Blow, Dust, Line, Rail, Snow, Stash, Pearl, Bump, Flake, Toot, Yeyo, Prince Charles or Colombian Marching Powder would allow us to keep the double entendre going. Over to you Martin Ling...

Leyton Orient 2 Barrow AFC 2, 11/8/18

A game which... began with all 11 Barrow players simultaneously hurling themselves to the ground, each in apparent need of sustained medical treatment. It turned out this was all part of a monumental effort on the part of the away team to waste as much time as possible, a curious tactic against Leyton Orient where every second the ball is in play is a second in which our defence could make some sort of catastrophic goal-conceding error.

Still, can't blame Barrow for literally destroying the whole point of football and it was up to Orient to respond. And respond they did, by ensuring that they did indeed make two catastrophic goal-conceding errors in the small amount of time the ball was actually on the pitch. 

I would comment further on the game, but I think the Barrow goalkeeper is still getting ready to take a goal kick...

Barrow in training for their match against Orient

Praise be... Mercifully, due to an administrative error, Macauley Bonne still plays for Orient, and we can thank the striker for the two goals that ensured we didn't actually lose. That said, Bonne did somehow manage to hit the Barrow goalkeeper (yes, I've mentioned him twice now but am still refusing to look up his name on Wikipedia) from point blank range minutes before his first, which means of his three shots on target he only converted two, which is frankly unacceptable at this level. Get rid. 

Taxi for... Charlie Lee, who was so anonymous against Barrow that I'm beginning to suspect he did actually play every single game last season entirely undetected. Someone other than me check the stats. And while you're at it, is there any evidence that Lee is actually any good? Other than in comparison to Craig Clay, obviously. 

In the dug out... You can say one thing about Justin Edinburgh: he knows his best team. And that team is the one constructed in his imagination with all the summer signings that didn't materialise. Still, can hardly blame the gaffer for sticking to the centuries-long Orient tactic of playing 4-4-2 and hoping for the best. But his team probably need to be a bit more streetwise in this league, for at the moment they are metaphorically paying a Soho pedicab driver £40 to take them 30 yards up Shaftesbury Avenue to an Aberdeen Angus Steak House while simultaneously being pickpocketed.

Are we going to be promoted? Well, three points from three games, and only 129 points left to play for. You do the math. That's right, it's literally impossible and now the focus must be on building for 2019/20. I jest: of course it's mathematically possible for Orient to be promoted. Probably won't be though unless we get a better goalkeeper and central midfield, but let's not have a meltdown just yet. After all, winning games early on is overrated. We achieved eight consecutive victories in 2013/14 and didn't even get promoted. Pathetic. 

Meanwhile... Superb trolling (as spotted by @weststandmick) from Barrow manager Ian Evatt, whose take on the game was: "We dominated the early stages but then got involved in their gamesmanship and physical side of things. We are not built for that, we are a footballing side." Evatt can currently be seen wandering the streets of Barrow dressed as a pot maniacally accusing kettles of being black.