Why pick on my club, Becchetti?
HOW DID it come to this? How, inexplicably, could my club have gone from 2- 0 up in the League One play- off fi nal in 2014 – just 45 minutes from a place in English football’s second tier – to being relegated out of the Football League on Saturday afternoon with a 3- 0 defeat at Crewe?
When I say ‘ my club’, of course it is not mine.
It is owned by an Italian businessman by the name of Francesco Becchetti.
It would be nice to say Mr Becchetti sat in the stands at Gresty Road on Saturday, applauding the great efforts of his club, admiring the battling way the young crop of players did all they could to keep his asset from non- League football; then came onto the pitch at the end, shook everyone’s hand and praised the way they had strained every sinew.
It would be nice to report that once they had changed back into club suits, he put a little envelope in the top pocket of each player, a little summer bonus to go with the wages that have dropped into their bank accounts every month on time.
What more would you expect from a man who had passed the Football League’s fi t and proper owners test? Instead, we come back to reality. The reality that the players and hard- working club staff have still not even been paid their March wages.
A reality that Becchetti has not been seen at a match since November.
And, dare I ask, in reality, whether when he came in pursuit of a football club four years ago, had he even heard of Leyton Orient?
Mr Becchetti, Mr Becchetti why did you pick on my club?
That’s not to say I would have wanted him to pick on any club. And now, surely, after what has happened to Orient, it must be a ground- breaking moment for the Football League when it comes to assessing owners. Thou Can Buy… But Thou Cannot Destroy. In almost 40 years of being a supporter – September 17, 1977, Orient 2 Bristol Rovers 1 was our fi rst date together – I awoke yesterday to digest a strange reality that Orient are actually out of the Football League. This is not to say our plight is any worse than those before us – Wrexham, York, Stockport, Lincoln ( who are now back) etc – but it is not like we were a club struggling to survive. We were on the cusp of something special. If Mr Becchetti decided to answer his critics, it would be interesting to know whether he thinks 11 managers in less than three years really was good business. Nothing like stability, eh, for a team which had been built on nothing and had gained a momentum that has been allowed to fall apart. But maybe, in the long run, it is better that he does not appear again. Maybe we should just wait for the day when it is announced that he has sold the club. Or maybe, we should just wait for the day when it is announced that the club has gone into administration before folding. Am I really saying this about something that has been a big part of my life for four decades? For Orient to rise again, maybe they had to fall. Only then could there be a future. I am surely not alone in saying there could never be a season like the one we have just gone through. Something had to give. And how ironic. On Saturday, as Orient were being relegated, the FA Cup semi- fi nal was taking place. Turn the clock back those 40 seasons, and in the year our love affair began, Orient actually reached the FA Cup semi- fi nal themselves. If someone had told me then that they would end up out of the league, drifting to nowhere, I would never have believed them. There again, I would never have believed them if they had said that just three years ago.