Leyton Orient FC and the glorious 'we'

Are you a ‘die-hard’? I’m not really. Not anymore. There used to be a time when I was but that ship has long since sailed into a filthy ocean of greed and commercialism.

Part of me still misses it though. Sadly, once you have let the tethered balloon of belief float away you can never really pull it back. A sad outcome where romance and blind loyalty ends up being replaced with cold logic and detachment.

I occasionally listen to those football phone-in shows where people dial in to utter things like “We wuz great tonight, Jim” or “We wuz terrible, total disgrace”.

I often find myself wondering who the “we” is. The players on the pitch maybe but not the bloke sat at home watching it on the television with a bargain bucket and a six pack. To me it is always “they” and never “we”.

Mostly, no amount of TV subscriptions or replica shirts can help transcend us from the observing “they” to the participating “we”. No matter how much we may try to fool ourselves.

These days, I save my die-hardness for international sport. This is still mostly a different proposition to the commercial franchise vehicles that surround so much of modern sport and especially football in the Premier league era. But even within that international sphere the same “we / they” methodology exists. I just tend to forget it more often!

The one area where I am still accepting of the ‘we’ is when it comes to the proper fans. The 2 per cent, if you will. Not the latch-ons who watch the game from a removed distance. Who select their teams based on the ability for them to win trophies and then luxuriate in the reflected and shallow glory that it brings.

I am speaking of the season ticket holders and the ones that follow their team, on the ground, up and down the country. Those that appear in rain and shine regardless of results and a lack of prospect. At huge personal expense they have wielded their shovel, dug enough trenches and paid their dues to such a level that the term ‘we’ is appropriate.

Within that I reserve special mention to those die-hards that save their devotion for small clubs. Accidents of birth and ancient loyalties forever consigning them to long barren periods of unsuccessfulness, punctuated by the odd fleeting harvest.

They are the glorious ‘we’. Those that turn up in their hundreds or low thousands to support their teams. They remain absolutely intrinsic to the fabric, identity and ongoing survival of their clubs. So small in their number that their voices are audible to the players on the pitch. They are the true ‘we’ that are immersed completely within their club and the game as to be almost inseparable from it.

It was them that I thought off this week as I flicked through the papers on the train home. It was a story on London’s second oldest Football club – Leyton Orient- and their ongoing battle for survival. The Os currently sit adrift at the bottom of the lowest tier of the Football League. Submerged in debt and ruled over by an incompetent and vainglorious owner by the name of Francesco Becchetti.

Forty of the ‘we’ were present at the High Court this week as the club faced a winding up order. Tellingly, neither Becchetti nor his representatives were present, but he did at least find the money owed to the taxman to avert disaster for another day. With more creditors coming forward the club exists in a form of limbo until the next official hearing in June.

It was those supporters that struck a chord with me. Lined up outside the court carrying a flag inscribed with ‘Save our Club’. Another in the background holding aloft an Orient scarf containing the message ‘Somme 1916’. They were mostly older and mostly unfashionable like their club and the area in which it resides. They appeared like a relic from another era providing a final glimpse of an old world swept away by the tide of changing demographics.

You wonder how many Saturday afternoons they had spent in the old stadium at Brisbane Road. The ground itself a reminder of how Football used to be and how it existed at the centre of communities, open and accessible to all.

I have only ever visited it once and stood on the small terrace at the away end witnessing my team achieve a stolid 0-0 draw. The ground itself shoehorned from all sides by ranks of old terrace houses. You could feel the ancient beating heart of Football there. A little scruffy and jaded maybe and not always pleasant, but real, vital and still relevant to the true believer.

The Premier League with its unrestrained corporatist agenda has little track with Orient or others of their ilk. The top of the Football pyramid is awash with cash while the lower echelons are hit from all sides and left to fight over the scraps. Internationally it attempts to trade on English football’s history. But, it is just a cynical marketing ploy aimed to shore up additional TV rights and merchandising.

It cares little about the survival of teams like Leyton Orient and rests easy in the fact that other clubs with money and ambitious owners will come in and fill the void.

As ever, they miss the point. Obsessed with money and marketing, they chase the latest trends and dismiss the value of history and continuity because it evades their understanding, being itself beyond their numerical view of the world.

Since the advent of the Premier League the game has steadily moved away from its community based red-brick locations to sprawling out of town stadia. A modern game that has left the parochial 20th century behind to fully embrace the internationalist 21st.

Perhaps this is a right and proper course of action. Maybe, myself and those old fellas outside the court need to move on and get with the new programme.

The problem is I just cannot help thinking that something important has been lost. Something that was culturally significant and unique has been morphed into a sterile and empty Americanised version of sport. It has been traded away on the altar of superficiality and greed and once it has gone it can never be regained. A line from Philip Larkin comes to mind:

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park.

The gent with the ‘Somme 1916’ scarf would understand the poignancy of this message. The average Premier League executive would probably not.

This is why the survival of the Os and small clubs like them matter. They hold up a rough edged picture to the game and how it once existed in our own consciousness. We let it slip from our grasp at our peril.

The future currently looks bleak for the East London club. Despite Becchetti promising to plough in £1,000,000 they still sit seven points from safety with seven matches to be completed. They have shipped 15 goals in their last four contests and have recently appointed their fifth manager of the campaign.

Omer Riza will ludicrously be their 11th manager since Becchetti took over in July 2014.

It now seems increasingly likely that after over 100 years of continuous membership that the O’s will drop out of the Football League this summer.

With Becchetti wanting to sell and the fans desperate for him to go it is hoped a new horizon can be established. However, amidst a backdrop of non-league football it is not immediately obvious to see where a new buyer will come from. The club remains in mortal peril and for those that respect the games roots and admire the faithful “We”, all that can be done is to hope for the best.

They play Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday. If you happen to be in London or England get yourself down there and show them some love. They may not be here forever.