ORIENT ON EXPRESS TRAIN TO RECOVERY
THE pitch at Brisbane Road is still scarred. Foxes dug holes in over the summer and left it unplayable, until a call was made for locals to help patrol the ground by walking their dogs around the perimeter at night. The deterrent worked, and the playing surface is now healing. As are Leyton Orient themselves.
The club still bears the marks of maltreatment under former owner Francesco Becchetti, and face a second season in nonleague after a 112-year stay in the Football League ended in 2017.
Just over 12 months on from Becchetti’s departure, the green shoots of recovery have taken hold, in no small thanks to Nigel Travis, the chief executive of Dunkin Donuts who led the consortium that took over the club in June last year.
The contrast between old and new could not be starker, according to captain Jobi McAnuff. He should know. The 36-year-old is enjoying his second spell at the club a great deal more than his first, which ended with Becchetti calling out his professionalism in a club statement.
That treatment of players, a staple of the Italian’s dictatorship, was a key factor in McAnuff’s decision to leave for Stevenage in 2016. The club he returned to a year a later, he says, is unrecognisable from the one he left behind.
‘When I came originally I was 32 and it was my plan for me to be settled, and be in an environment where people know me and what I’m about. It didn’t quite pan out that way,’ McAnuff said.
‘When you are getting questioned on your character and your personality — which is one thing I would never accept — that was difficult.
‘Anyone who was here through that period will be glad that those days are over. We’re all looking forward with owners who have the club’s interest at heart. They can’t do enough for us, whether it’s players or the fans.’
Looking forward inevitably involves a return to the Football League, a target that looks increasingly achievable after an unbeaten start to the season. On Saturday, Orient extended that run to five games thanks to a penalty from 22-yearold Zimbabwe international Macauley Bonne.
McAnuff believes convincing their top players to stick around — Bonne signed a new contract last week — is one of the key indicators of how much the atmosphere has improved.
‘Keeping Macca is a massive statement of intent from the owners. He’s one of the top strikers playing outside the Football League and I’m sure his future is going to be in the Football League,’ McAnuff said. McAnuff is a winger with 18 years first-team experience since breaking into the Wimbledon side in 2000 at the age of 18, who his manager, Justin edinburgh, sees as a player capable of leading his young squad in the right direction. ‘He’s an incredible
professional,’ edinburgh said. ‘He’s a class act on and off the pitch and with the youngsters we’ve got here he’s a perfect role model.
‘every day he trains to his maximum, conducts himself on and off the pitch in a manner that rubs off on these young players. Modern-day professionals sometimes get too much too quickly — he’s one of the old pros which I think we’re losing a lot of.’
While Orient’s main man has returned, Boreham Wood’s influencers are heading in the opposite direction.
The Wood, with the lowest average attendance — 684 — in the league, overachieved last season, reaching the play- off final. Such success has hardly won them a large band of new followers: on Saturday, they took just 94 fans on the 12-mile trip.
Their performances last term has brought their players to the attention of bigger clubs, though, who have stripped them of some of their prized assets.
‘We achieved something last year that a lot of people wouldn’t have put our name to,’ said manager Luke Garrard.
‘We’re going through a rebuilding stage. The players we lost are a combination of 40-plus goals. For me that’s something that
we need to replace.’