LONDON’S CALLING FOR NEW HEROES
TOM LOIZOU was only meant to be at Haringey Borough for eight games – that was eight years ago!
The boss was answering an SOS call from chairman Aki Achillea with Borough desperate to avoid relegation from the Spartan South Midlands Premier division at the back end of the 2008-09 campaign.
These days the London side that Loizou proudly reminds us are the only club actually based on White Hart Lane, are pushing for Bostik North promotion and are set to welcome neighbours Leyton Orient in the FA Trophy first round proper.
It will be one of the biggest days in the club’s history and Loizou says it’s the latest step in putting themselves on the map.
“When I came here, the chairman said to me, ‘We’ve got eight games to go, we need to win five to stay up, can you come and help me?’ Loizou said. “So I was only meant to be here for eight games and I’m still here! The he said, ‘How can I keep you?’ I said, ‘Let’s build a football club and get people talking about us’.
“The first four or five years, no players wanted to come and play for us because the facilities were worse than playing over at Hackney Marshes.
Right direction
“People were laughing at us. They would beat us, the manager would shake my hand, pat me on the head and say, ‘Unlucky son’. Now they don’t want to shake my hand!
“We still haven’t got the respect we should at the football club. I hear the way people talk about us, but we’re going in the right direction. We’re trying to change the whole face of the football club and people’s opinions. I’m trying to get players in who have been released by pro clubs and players with the potential to go into full-time football.
“Our centre forward, Ralston Gabriel, we got out of Power League and he’s smashing it. He’s only 25, been playing with a slight injury all season and has still scored 20 goals in all competitions. My back line are all under 20. These lads just need a little bit of love and we’ve been doing well.”
Injuries have hit them hard since early November, but Orient won’t relish their first ever Trophy game. Haringey have beaten Step 3 Harrow Borough to reach this stage and in their run to the FA Cup fourth round qualifying stage this season they dumped out EVOSTIK Southern Premier Hitchin Town and National League South side Welling United.
Borough hope the high-profile game will help the local area show the love to the club Loizou likens to a family.
“We’ve given away 2,000 free season tickets recently because up until two years ago we had three supporters and one of them died!” Loizou said. “So now we get gates of about 200 and we’ve had crowds of 4-500 but we’re hoping for 2,000 against Orient.”
Stories
Links with the O’s run deep with some players and backroom staff previously employees of the National League side.
Loizou himself was Orient’s U16s coach, head of youth, reserve manager and even had a caretaker spell when Chris Turner and John Sitton left.
“We had some lovely days there,” Loizou said. “We brought Ledley King through. I remember John Sitton, myself and some others working very hard with Ledley King at the Centre of Excellence. He was a central midfielder then. It was the old Charles Hughes method, we taught him how to defend and look at the career he had.
“And I had a player
who I played with in Sunday football called George Barry. I said I’d never played with anyone better in Sunday football. He played four games, got man of the match each time, and then Pat Holland came in and sacked him! So there are a few stories. “I said to my players before the last FA Trophy round, ‘If we win this, I’ve got a funny feeling we’ll draw Leyton Orient’.
“On Monday the chairman phoned me screaming and jumping up and down and about half-anhour later we confirmed we’d been drawn against them.
“We’ve got four players who were at Orient as youngsters so it’s going to be an interesting game. If I haven’t got any injuries and can pick my strongest side then I think we’ve got a chance.”