‘It’s the soul of the club that has me hooked to Orient’
Texan Kent Teague is restoring some pride to the east London side, writes Matt Law
‘People in Texas have no idea what in the world I am doing ... it makes no sense – and yet it’s perfect’
Leyton Orient sold the seat of the man the supporters have christened their Texan saviour because Kent Teague never sits down. Teague, the club’s principal backer and vice-chairman, likened his behaviour to a “nervous cat” as he prowled up and down the balcony of the directors’ enclosure during a goalless draw with Aldershot on Tuesday last week.
“There is no point in me having a seat,” explained Teague on the latest of his 10 monthly visits from Texas. “I won’t sit in it.”
In fact, Teague did not sit down once during five hours in his company last week. Before and after the game, he shook hands with well over 100 supporters, sponsors and directors, posed for photographs, signed autographs and took time to explain the history of Thanksgiving to one interested east London local. The only two places he will not go on his personal tour are the pitch – which he believes is sacrosanct – and the dressing rooms.
Teague’s approval ratings are off the scale. Before the Aldershot match, he was stopped in a corridor by an elderly fan who thanked him for “saving my club” following the dark days of previous owner Francesco Becchetti.
Most supporters will not even mention Becchetti by name, although Teague is not entirely comfortable with his own messianic moniker. “My mom always says ‘look what they did to the last saviour’,” he said in his Texan drawl. “She’s not religious but she doesn’t really like people calling me that.”
Even so, it is hard to think of a more fitting description for Teague and co-owner Nigel Travis. During a quick questionand-answer session with corporate guests ahead of kick-off, Teague said: “We are so blessed to have had two sell-outs, one in October and one in November, which shows truly that our club is back.”
According to predictions, Orient were meant to be dead by now, killed off either by West Ham United’s move to the London Stadium just one stop up the Central Line, or by Becchetti and relegation out of the Football League in April 2017.
The fightback began two months later, when Teague and Travis – the man behind Dunkin’ Donuts – completed their takeover. After a season treading water in mid-table in the National League, and now managed by former Tottenham Hotspur defender Justin Edinburgh, Orient are sitting proudly at the top of the table. Even more importantly to the regulars, their soul has been restored.
“It’s the relationships that make the soul of this club and it’s that soul of the club that has me hooked to Orient,” said Teague. “I believe it’s important for me to be involved as much as I can and to try to make a difference.
“Leyton Orient has a special, unique history and a feeling of being a family club. We are also, in some respects, a little sister or a little brother club, a second club that people who also support Premier League clubs care about and watch over.
“In the UK, you have a form of clan that we don’t have in the United States. So, there is just nothing like Leyton or Leyton Orient in my country.” The 2-0 victory over Gateshead on Saturday – which Teague also attended – kept Orient one point above second-placed Salford City, the club backed by Peter Lim and Manchester United’s Class of ’92, and who have faced accusations of financial doping.
“They are a club that has a certain strategy and they are going to exercise that strategy, and we will all see if it works,” Teague said. “I don’t have the historical perspective of ‘this is an appropriate club’ or ‘this isn’t an appropriate club’.
“You have different histories between us and all the other clubs in the National League and those differences bring alternative philosophies and strategies, but there is no right or wrong for me.”
There is a growing feeling around east London that Orient can offer an alternative for football enthusiasts who do not want to traipse in and out of a shopping centre to watch games from afar in the London Stadium, or simply cannot afford a trip to Tottenham’s new ground when it finally opens.
Martin Ling made almost 150 appearances for Orient as a player, guided the club to promotion to League One as a manager and returned as director of football under the ownership of Travis and Teague.
“Things had obviously gone massively downhill here before I came back, but now it feels like my club again,” he said. “It feels like it’s back to what it was when I was manager. Traditionally, this has been a well-run, family club that people want to come back to. It turned into the opposite of that for a while, but now people want to come here again.
“We’ve also got the regeneration of the area bringing new people through the door. I don’t think during my whole time as manager, in League One or League Two, that we had 4,000 season-ticket holders, which we have now.”
Ling, who grew up as a West Ham fan, added: “The first game I went to was in 1974 when I was an eight-year-old and I used to love going to Upton Park. But when I go to the London Stadium, I find it a shell and I do think that some of their disgruntled fans, or some floating supporters in the area, would enjoy it here.”
Teague is certainly relishing the chance to lead Orient’s revival, although this was not his first taste of the sporting life. He spent a year on the PGA Tour as a professional golfer in the 1980s, before deciding he was not good enough to make any serious money from the sport.
He worked at Microsoft for seven years before leaving to set up Gold Creek Capital in 1999 and preparing himself to become an owner of a sports team by studying the different approaches of his compatriots.
When he is not in Leyton staying at a £70-a-night high-street hotel, the multi-millionaire watches all of Orient’s games on a live feed that is filmed for the coaching staff with no commentary.
“People in Texas have no idea what in the world I am doing,” he said. “It makes absolutely no sense to them. None. I have no family tie, I have no historical tie, I have never lived in London, I didn’t have any friends in London. None of it makes sense, not financially,
emotionally, family-wise, socially, career-wise, distance-wise, geography-wise, blah, blah, blah – and yet, you’ve seen it. It’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect.”
Teague interrupted his “nervous cat” routine on the balcony to wave to a small pocket of Orient supporters in the stand to his left during the Aldershot draw.
“We have this thing that we wave to each other when the ball goes out for the first corner,” said Teague. “I like it, but I don’t really get it. It’s just one of those funny little English things you guys do.”
Those funny little English things are all part of the charm for Teague. And they are exactly why his unlikely love affair with Leyton Orient has mended the hearts of the club’s disciples.