It was a busy and ultimately pretty successful festive period both for the playing squad and Orient fans, however the missus’ and mine got off to the worst possible start.

Standing on the concourse at London Euston 10 mins before our scheduled departure, we got the news that our train to Manchester Piccadilly had been cancelled. There was a later train that would still get us there ahead of kick-off, but while other fellow travelling O’s fans decided to risk being stuck in Bolton for Christmas, we decided that we would use the money from our refunded train tickets to finance a day out in North London.

As I am not in a position to comment on the game, and most of us probably won’t want to be reminded of the first 10 minutes anyway, the better half is ready at hand to update you on our “home” awayday.

The Missus’ (Non!) Matchday View – Bolton – The awayday that never was but was….

To be honest, I always knew that going to Bolton on 23^rd December was a risk.  Faced with people trying to get home for Christmas, and please tick as appropriate: train delays/ strikes/ engineering works/ cancellations/ the wrong type of leaves on the line (need I go on?), or generally just down to the incompetence of Avanti. As it turned out our “tick” was cancelled trains.

Before setting off we already knew that our connecting train and one of our returns had been cancelled, but we decided we would risk it anyway. We were optimistic when our train was allegedly being “prepared”, but maybe alarm bells should have kicked in when we asked at the information desk which platform it would be, and they had no idea. Surely it was at some platform, one would think! 10 minutes before departure lo and behold the train was cancelled!

After a debate about whether to attempt the journey and thinking that we were going to get handed our arse by Bolton anyway, we decided not to risk missing Orient at home on Boxing Day, and opted to go to the Signal Box at Euston to drown our sorrows and convince ourselves this was this was the right thing to do.

Three pints later, we decided that we should take the opportunity to sort of recreate our first date together at the Nags Head in Islington. Gareth used to work just down the road when I met him and called the pub “meeting room number 2” because he was in there quite a lot. Apparently the best strategies are the result of a few pints. Maybe some of our players need a few?

After the disappointing burger situation the previous week in Cheltenham we decided to revisit the place in the UK that does, in my opinion, the best burger in the country (we actually have a spreadsheet called the “burger rating scale” that has been going for at least 10 years. Yes he really is that nerdy!)

After a few more mulled wines for me along the way, we ended up at MEAT just before 3. We ordered two dead hippie burgers and chilli cheese fries and 2 beers. We happily ate our burgers, content after the disappointment of last week. Then we decided to check the score. We were 1-nil down after just 3 minutes, so Gareth decided to go to the toilet- a tactic that sometimes works because someone somewhere will go to the toilet, and someone will score! It was 2-nil to them by the time he got back. We debated what the score would be by the time we got to the Nags Head. It was 3-nil when we finally left a little over 10 minutes since kick off!

Walking back to the Nags Head we were glad we hadn’t gone, and we would also get a refund from “Shitvanti” which was not an insignificant amount of money and paid for our burgers. Unfortunately when we got to the Nags Head, former meeting room number 2, it had become some sort of bizarre cocktail lounge to our dismay. When we checked the score again, it was 3-2 and we started to wonder if we had made the right decision in not going, however that was the final score and a decent non awayday in my opinion.

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After all the fun of Christmas, it was a relatively early start for us all on Boxing Day, with our fixture against Charlton being brought forward to 1pm. After the far from unexpected defeat at Bolton, where at least the O’s showed some spirit in fighting back to 3-2, on the face of it Charlton looked like something of a tricky fixture given the proximity of the two teams in the table, and the hard-fought win the Addicks had enjoyed over us on the opening day.

In the end we acquitted ourselves fairly well in the first half, and then finally found the breakthrough 10 minutes from time when Dan Agyei, on as a sub for the impressive Ethan Galbraith, beat his man along the goal-line and picked out Omar Beckles in the box to slot home. It was another example of the persistence and fight that this squad is showing it is capable of, at least for the most part, so far this season.  

Just three days later we were back at Brisbane Road, this time for a Friday evening kick-off against Wycombe Wanderers. Was it just me, or did it seem strange being there on a Friday evening? Struggling for form having not won in any of their previous eight matches, it almost feels a little too simplistic to say that the visitors set out to try and get a point and got exactly what they came for.

It certainly wasn’t a match that will live long in the memories of fans of flowing attacking football. While it was a little disappointing to drop two points against a team we perhaps felt we should be beating, and also raised familiar concerns about our attacking threat, taken into context with the win over Charlton four points from two matches felt like a decent enough return.

On New Years Day we were off on our travels, this time to Cambridge. Given what had transpired to prevent us from getting to Bolton, I think we were both relieved, (if somewhat hungover!) that our train and Rail Replacement bus connection both ran on time, and we were in Cambridge just after noon. Ahead of this one, I think a lot of us felt that a point away from home after the hectic Christmas schedule would have rounded off an acceptable return from our festive matches.

For a lot of the first half it certainly felt like a share of the spoils was looking the most likely outcome, but then in the space of just three second half minutes we sealed the victory thanks to goals from Jordan Brown and a first for the club for Dan Agyei. The relief on his face and the joy on his teammates’ showed you just how much it meant to him and the squad as a whole for him to get off the mark.

After finding a way to get out of jail at Cheltenham and crucially halt our winless run; a haul of seven points from four matches, knocking in a few goals, and three consecutive clean sheets, has done a lot to lift the spirits around E10. As we have said on previous posts, getting ourselves going and building some momentum through positive results felt like exactly what we needed to do. We are now 12^th in the table – the very definition of mid-table that we know is the target for the season.

It also feels like we are starting to get to more of a settled line-up with Galbraith looking like the creative spark in attacking midfield that we have been sorely missing, Shaq Forde seeming like a decent option wide on the right, and Dan Agyei getting back to where we want/ need him to be. There also may be the possibility of an addition or two in forward areas which would really boost us going into the rest of the campaign, although if I am reading the noises coming out of the club correctly, we may have to get a few out the door to really bolster the squad the way we want to.

In many ways it is a shame that the Blackpool match this weekend has been postponed as we would have gone into that full of confidence and ready to take the game to the visitors. We can only hope that the two weeks’ rest does us good before we head into a tough looking fixture at Fratton Park a week tomorrow. We can worry/ think about that trip next week.

Up the O’s!