. “I think it’s the only time I’ve ever seen us play them.” The Leyton Orient chairman’s account of watching his club face Manchester City is rare among fans of the League One team – the teams have not met since a second-tier 2-2 draw in 1966. Fortunes have diverged since but Orient welcome City to east London on Saturday in upbeat mood and at something of a crossroads.
After seven and a half years of steady upward progress since Travis’s consortium took over a club in ruins after relegation to the National League, the chairman has been soliciting fresh investment. A new stadium nearby is being considered and talk has been afoot of aping their former lower division London rivals and “doing a Brentford”. The manager, Richie Wellens, has spoken of “not being ‘little Leyton Orient’ any more”.
“I think Brentford’s the inspiration for a lot of football clubs, as are Brighton,” says Travis. “Mark Devlin [Orient’s chief executive, formerly at Brentford] thinks we were in a better position when he came on board than Brentford were when they were in League One so it’s possible. It’s probably unlikely, but every year except one here we’ve made progress. The biggest issue is the stadium’s not big enough.”
Brisbane Road holds 9,271 and with gates averaging 7,628 this term – their highest since the old Second Division days of the 1970s – and a growing local population the case for a move, preferably within their home borough, Waltham Forest, is strong. Three potential sites have been identified.
League One is a tougher environment, though, than it was 11 years ago, when the Bees began their rise by pipping Russell Slade’s Orient to automatic promotion. The money splurged by American owners at Birmingham – “at least four times our budget” – and Wrexham has raised the …
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