Well that was quite a turn up for the books wasn’t it? To go to Stevenage with a squad depleted by injury, match them physically, frustrate them, and ultimately escape with all three points was not only unexpected but very welcome in the Orient camp.

Like most (all?) Orient fans, I am not overly fond of Stevenage as an awayday: as it is so close to London it doesn’t feel like a “proper” journey, once you arrive the town centre looks as if it has seen better days (although quite when those days were is anyone’s guess!!) and the one pub between the station and the ground, the Old Post Office, serves a function but is hardly the nicest spot to enjoy a pre-match pint or two. On top of that, due to the lack of any facilities underneath the stands they are not allowed to sell beer, the queue for refreshments is usually way longer than it should be, and then you have all the fun and games of the “sit in your seat v sit anywhere” debate. (All of this without even mentioning Steve Evans and the way he sets his team up!). 

In fact such is its lack of appeal, not helped by our recent results there it has to be said, that the better half spent most of the preceding evening paraphrasing Elvis Costello and suggesting that she simply “didn’t want to go to Stevenage”. Deep down we both knew she would be on the train, she simply wanted to make it clear that it was completely out of duty rather than any real desire.

Going into the match it is probably fair to say that you would have been hard pushed to find any Orient fan who was approaching the encounter with any great confidence, given the last two meetings between the sides had resulted in humbling 3-0 defeats, and the sheer number of injuries that we are dealing with meaning that our squad was in the words of Richie Wellens “down to the bare bones”. Although for some strange reason, just as she had done at Oxford a few weeks previously, the missus suggested that she had a good feeling about this one and thought we would win.

Let’s be honest it wasn’t pretty, it probably wasn’t the type of performance that Richie or us the fans want to see from our team, but in a strange way it is perhaps something to take encouragement from going forward that we showed we could play a different (uglier?) way and still pick up three points. Max Sanders opened the scoring in the 16^th minute with his first goal for the club, and we certainly got lucky when Reid’s “equalizer” was ruled out for what to even my biased eyes seemed to be a generous handball decision, but didn’t that make it even more enjoyable?

Given the relative youth of our side, special mention should be given to Darren Pratley and Omar Beckles who set the tone in the centre of the park by matching Stevenage’s physical approach right from the kick off. The fact that Evans made a quadruple change at the start of the second half shows how much we frustrated him and his side in the opening period.

I also thought Sol Brynn showed great maturity for a young goalkeeper in standing firm when the opposition were slinging balls into the box in their increasingly desperate search for an equalizer later in the game.

As for the antics after the final whistle which saw Richie goad their fans and incur the wrath of Dan Sweeney and his manager, I should probably adopt the grown up attitude and say that there was no need for it; but I have to say like most of those around me in the away end, I actually found it ironically highly amusing.

Ever since the frustrating defeats at home to Burton and Bristol Rovers I have been steadfast in believing that the play-offs are beyond us this season, largely due to all of the injuries, but the performance at Broadhall Way has shown that, if nothing else, this squad (or at least what’s left of it) has plenty of character and fighting spirit, which will stand us in good stead going forward.

As things stand we are five points behind Oxford who sit in sixth and the final play-off spot, it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility of course, although looking at our remaining fixtures we face some very tough clashes away at Lincon, at home to Peterborough and away at Derby. One thing we do know however is that the lads will give it their best and see where it takes us. That match at Lincoln on Good Friday looks like being a really tough one given how the Imps are flying at the moment, but another positive result might just have us all dreaming once again.

Before then of course we face a blank weekend thanks to the postponement of the match at home to Exeter as a result of international callups from both sides. While it is somewhat frustrating to have our momentum stifled, it might help us to rest some aching legs and allow some recovery time for all of the players that are carrying knocks. For the missus and I we are off to Barcelona where we will be running the rule over Espanyol who are in the second tier and therefore not subject to the international break. Full details of our adventures in next week’s post.

Up the O’s!