We ended last week’s post (Orient Nerd Season Review 2024/25 – Part 3: February 2025 (Part 2) to March 2025) when we had just beaten Stevenage 1-0 in a largely uneventful match at Brisbane Road. Although rather concerningly I had done something to my back which would put a halt to me doing one of the things that I love most in life: going to watch my beloved Orient home and away. 

April 2025

Even before the issue with my back, I had decided that Burton away on a Tuesday evening in another rescheduled match was going to be one I watched at home on Sky+. It would have been difficult to swing any more time off work, and after being messed around with kick-off times all through the season, I thought I would use the TV coverage to my benefit. It turned out to be a wise decision as during the afternoon my back went completely, and I could barely make it off the sofa.

If we were taking the wins at Blackpool and at home to Stevenage as a sign of a potential upturn in form, then this match was to prove something of a misstep. We started the match effectively enough and when Dan Agyei gave us a deserved lead 10 minutes in, it felt like we were going to do the business and get the result we needed to carry on the play-off push.

However an astute tactical tweak from Burton manager Gary Bowyer and two goals in quick succession by the Brewers just past the hour mark sealed our fate, and we headed home defeated in a match we probably should have won.

Sadly despite my hopes to the contrary, I was in no fit state to make it to Brisbane Road the following Saturday for the match against Wigan and so after failing a late fitness test, I reluctantly had to rule myself out. With the game not being screened on TV it was an afternoon in the very enjoyable audio company or Dulcet Dave Victor and Matt Hiscock for me, for the first time in quite some time.

In the end it turned out to be a frustrating goalless draw, and once again our hopes of making the play-offs took another dent. We were now 6 points off 6^th place with both Reading and Huddersfield ahead of us by 5 and 4 points respectively. With 6 matches to go, all we could do was to focus on trying to win our games and hope that the other teams stumbled.

The first of those matches was at Mansfield the following Tuesday evening. It was certainly a game that ebbed and flowed all the way through. Dom Dwyer opened the scoring for the Stags after just 2 minutes sliding the ball home after a break down our left hand side. Dilan Markanday got us back on terms 5 minutes before half-time when he wriggled himself into space in their penalty area before firing home.

Just after the break Charlie Kelman gave us the lead with a strong drive from the edge of the penalty area, but George Maris then made it 2-2 just past the hour mark. In the end Kelman (who else?) settled the match with probably his best strike of the season: he worked his way in from the left wing and curled an absolute peach of an effort into the top far corner.

With that hard won 3 points in the bag next it was a trip to Crawley who were in the midst of a relegation fight, one that they would ultimately go on to lose. Sadly for me it had become all too clear that my season was over, unless the O’s could somehow make it all the way through to Wembley and I could get myself there, unlikely as both seemed at that point!

After going a goal down to a penalty for a reckless handball by Sean Clare at the start of the second half, we drew level just minutes later when Charlie Kelman (again ole ole!) raced onto a ball over the top, held off a challenge and cutely slotted the ball across himself and just inside the left post. Then just a minute later we were awarded our first penalty in the league all season. Kelman duly slotted it home and we were 2-1 up.

Jamie Donley made it 3-1 in added time after gathering a loose ball in the area and cutely tucking it home. Was the play-off dream back on? Easter weekend with a home game against Barnsley and then a trip to struggling Cambridge were going to be the key to that.

Thankfully due to it being a holiday weekend all of the League 1 matches on Good Friday and Easter Monday were to be available for viewing on Sky Sports+ (haven’t I always said that the new TV deal can only be of benefit to fans!!), so I could at least watch them, albeit from the comfort of our living room.

The Barnsley match on Good Friday turned out to be one of the best Orient games I think I have ever seen. Being confined to barracks actually made it more tense and the time seemed to drag before kick-off. I was also really missing catching up with all the Orient family ahead of what was a hugely important game.

We got off to one of the worst starts imaginable when Stephen Humphrys put the visitors 2-0 up before we had even played a quarter of the match. The first was from a corner, a familiar failing, while the second came from a ball clipped forward that seemed to catch our backline too high. Was the pressure of it all getting to the lads? 

It stayed 2-0 until half-time but we started the second half with a bit more impetus about us. Just 5 minutes in Ethan Galbraith grabbed a goal back after being played in by Jamie Donley. However any hope that created was relatively short-lived as just past the hour mark Davis Keillor-Dunn made it 3-1 and I for one had a strange sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

What the hell was I thinking? This is the new version of Leyton Orient, the one that doesn’t know when it’s beaten and is capable of some sublime late rescue acts! In the space of just 6 minutes we completely and utterly turned the game on its head.  First Jamie Donley picked out Charlie Kelman sliding in at the far post with a beautiful ball across the face of goal, which the striker duly slotted home for his league-leading 20^th goal of the campaign.

Then Kelman turned provider setting up Sean Clare for the equalizer before Omar Beckles somehow forced a loose ball from a half-cleared corner home sparking utter chaos around E10 and the Orient Nerd living room. It was a truly stunning game of football and another clear reminder of why we all fell in love with the game in the first place.

Easter Monday saw us travel to Cambridge where we were to show our resilience and powers of recovery again, coming from behind to win for the fourth match in succession. Obviously no side includes going a goal, or even two, down to get themselves going in their game plan, but at the same time the resilience that Orient showed across this run had to be taken as another key attribute of the side.

If our start at home to Barnsley was lethargic, then the same could most definitely be said of this one. After a brief flurry of positivity in which we threatened without truly looking like making the breakthrough, Cambridge’s scrappy goal in the 19^th minute seemed to very much take the wind out of our sails.

That unimpressive first half prompted gaffer Richie Wellens to make two changes at the start of the second half: Dan Agyei and Diallang Jaiyesimi replacing the largely ineffective, if not completely anonymous, Dilan Markanday and Randell Williams.

It took a little while but gradually we started to get more of a grip on the game, Agyei in particular showing some threat down the right flank. As we approached the final 20 minutes, it was he who picked out Charlie Kelman at the far post with a searching cross that the striker nodded home cooly.

10 minutes later Jamie Donley won it for us with another of his pieces of magic. This time he flicked the ball up before volleying left-footed low across goal and inside the upright. While we all knew at that stage that there was no way we would keep hold of Donley for the following season, it has been an absolute pleasure watching him mature as a player and also to enjoy his plentiful moments of utter brilliance and sublime skill especially through the second half of the season.

After the match and with the way that results had panned out over the long weekend, it was now only us and Reading that had a realistic chance of securing 6^th spot. With us enjoying a better goal difference of 9, the picture was crystal clear: win our final two matches at home to Wycombe and then away at Huddersfield and barring a huge swing in goal difference, we were in the play-offs.

Going into the Wycombe game I have to confess I just couldn’t get the 3-0 tonking at their place back at the end of October out of my head. However both teams were in different places than they had been back then. Having challenged for automatic promotion right from the start, the departure of manager Matt Bloomfield to Luton Town in January seemed to knock the Chairboys off their stride a little bit. Still they were in 3^rd place in the table just 2 points behind Wrexham in 2^nd.

Whereas we had been on a surge up the table since the autumn, and even though we had lost 5 matches in a row, were now most definitely back in the promotion mix. Just realising that did little to settle my pre-match nerves. Just like the Barnsley game, it felt worse having to watch it on TV.

In fairness it wasn’t much of a match with very little in the way of goalmouth action in the opening 45 minutes save for an off target header by Brandon Cooper. The game was eventually settled by a header from an unexpected source Randell Williams nodding home Dan Agyei’s cross in the 66^th minute. One down one more to go!

May 2025

Going into the final game of the league season away at Huddersfield, while I was hopeful that we would get the win we needed to ensure our place in the play-offs, I didn’t, even in my most wildly optimistic moments, expect it to be quite so straightforward. A true sign of the progress that the O’s made over the course of the 2024/25 campaign.

If we had been enduring some slow starts in recent matches, this was the complete opposite. In just the second minute of the match, Jamie Donley seized upon a woefully under-hit back pass from Josh Koroma (cheers Josh! Once an O, always an O and all that!), he drove forward before unselfishly setting up Dan Agyei to smash home.

As we approached the half hour mark we forced Huddersfield goalkeeper, Jacob Chapman, to turn the ball into his own net when an Agyei cross looped up as the result of a deflection and Chapman couldn’t paw it out.

Of course it wouldn’t be the Orient we know and love without something to make it “interesting”. Just four minutes before the break we didn’t deal with a ball into the box and somehow that man Koroma (thanks for nothing Josh!) managed to loop a header beyond Josh Keeley.

In the grand scheme of things it didn’t really matter as just three minutes after the restart, Charlie Kelman laid the ball off for Dan Agyei after a quick counter attack, Agyei took a touch to settle himself before curling a beauty inside the left hand post.

As the second half wore on, news began to filter through of Reading conceding first one and then a second goal in quick succession against Barnsley, and it then started to feel like we could relax a tad. There was just time for Azeem Abdulai to make it 4-1 10 minutes before the end. With the final whistle came the realisation that we had only gone and done it. Little (apologies Richie!) Leyton Orient were through to the play-offs.

After the relentless league programme, there wasn’t too much time, just the 7 days in fact, for us to get ready to take on Stockport at Brisbane Road in the first leg of the play-off semi-final. The Hatters had been strong for the most part throughout the entire season and in fact might have counted themselves a tad unlucky to have missed out on the automatic promotion that they had been targeting.

This semi-final was a very difficult one to call. Stockport had finished the season in third spot, had been in a good run of form, and had ended our long unbeaten run with a 1-0 victory at Brisbane Road at the beginning of February. However, even though we had finished 9 points behind the Hatters, we had ended the season as the form team in the division, winning all of our final 6 matches.

As expected, from the outset the match was something of a cagey affair with neither side seemingly wanting to take too many risks in case they were caught out and surrendered the momentum of the tie. Then on the half hour mark, Orient opened the scoring thanks in no small part to a rather large dollop of good fortune.

Sean Clare headed a half-cleared ball back into the area, where League 1 golden boot winner Charlie Kelman was waiting all on his own to gather and fire home. At the time I remember thinking that there may have been a hint of offside to say the least. If it had just been the header from Clare then it would have been a very close call; but Omar Beckles seemed to get a touch on Clare’s header which if spotted would have made the whole argument moot. As they say: in knockout football you need a bit of luck, and we certainly got ours there.

No matter how fortunate it was, we went in at the break 1-0 to the good and more than matching our opponents. However just 15 minutes into the second half, the game was to turn completely on its head.

First Stockport were (rightly, it has to be said) awarded a penalty when REG inexplicably slapped a ball into the box away with the palm of his hand. Quite what he was trying to do wasn’t exactly clear. Oliver Norwood dispatched the spot kick, and it was 1-1.

Then just 5 minutes later Fraser Horsfall was the first to react to a free kick into the area and nodded home to give the visitors the lead. Our defence was somewhat flat-footed to say the least.

Even though it felt like a bit of a body blow to concede twice in quick succession, we didn’t panic and stuck to our task. We had a shout for a penalty when Charlie Kelman seemed to be tripped in the box, but I guess given how lucky we were with our opening goal, these things maybe do even themselves out.  

Then with just 2 minutes remaining we were awarded a penalty of our own.  Ollie O’Neill’s effort from Dan Agyei’s cross hit Horsfall on the arm, and while it may not have seemed as obvious as the one we gave away; it definitely merited the award. Kelman of course tucked it away for 2-2 and as the old cliché goes at “half-time” in the two-legged affair, it was still very much all to play for.

Going into the second leg I have to admit that I was fully expecting them to come flying at us from the outset and to try to wrestle control of the tie. Well what do I know? Instead it was us that started the match on the front foot, and when the returning Ollie O’Neill gave us the lead with just 2 minutes on the clock, there was chaos in our living room, which was undoubtedly surpassed in the away end up in Greater Manchester.

In a funny way though taking an early lead in such an important match actually increases the tension. Now that we had something to hold onto, the clock seemed to start to move in slow motion, and the intensity of the situation weighed heavy on the nerves, as we knew that one slip and we would let the hosts back into it.

Stockport certainly had some chances to get back into it before half-time, Horsfall in particular was proving a real handful from set-pieces just as he had been at Brisbane Road. There were also chances spurned from Isaac Olaofe and Ibou Touray, to name but two, and Josh Keeley made a couple of decent stops.  However we survived with our lead intact at the break.

Charlie Kelman very nearly found the second goal at the start of the second half, but the remainder of the match was very much a stalemate. Although Olaofe wasted a glorious opportunity right at the death, blasting his effort over the bar after outmuscling Omar Beckles on the edge of our area.

Extra time was just as attritional, the longer it went on, the more inevitable penalties seemed to be. Josh Keeley made a couple of decent stops and Bailey clipped the outside of the post for the hosts, but in the end this epic tussle was to be decided from 12 yards.

While shootouts are always nervy affairs, I think we had all seen enough of Josh Keeley over the course of the season to feel confident in him saving at least one of the efforts he faced. So it was to prove. Tom James looked like the coolest man in the place when he tucked away our first one, while Ollie Norwood converted Stockport’s first, Sean Clare with his stuttering run-up made it 2-1, before Keeley worked his magic grasping Jack Diamond’s weak effort low to his right.

Azeem Abdulai slotted home our third and when Ryan Rydel, who looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world than where he was, saw his effort come crashing back off the post, all Ethan Galbraith had to do was slot his kick home to send Orient through to Wembley. Was it really in any doubt? You just knew the young Northern Ireland international was the right man for the job, and when he found the back of the net it sparked utter pandemonium amongst the Orient faithful.

So Charlton at Wembley it was to be with the opportunity of a completely unexpected promotion to the second tier for the first time in a very long time, if we could just find a way to win one more match.  

Thankfully after being forced to miss the end of the season due to injury, I was just about fit enough to get myself to Wembley and back, as there was no way in this world I was going to miss out on what could be a landmark moment in the history of Leyton Orient. The beer certainly helped!

I don’t really want to rake over the coals of what happened in the final. Suffice it to say that neither team really played at their best, we got caught out by a first half free kick, and just when we looked like we were starting to build some momentum and might just get back into it, a ridiculous delay completely disrupted our flow, and we didn’t really threaten again.

While losing at Wembley is always gutting, it is important not to let the disappointment cloud what has ultimately been a hugely successful campaign. Remembering the bigger picture, the goal for our second season back in League 1 has always been about consolidation and progress. Finishing in the top 6 and getting through to Wembley can most certainly be regarded as overachievement given where we were in the autumn and early winter, as well as who we were up against in the division.

The important thing now is to keep on building and growing under the stewardship of new majority owner David Gandler, and to continue on the very positive upward trajectory that the club is on. It is all too easy to forget that just over three years ago Kenny Jackett was sacked amidst the very genuine fear of an ignominious return to the National League. Now we find ourselves disappointed that we won’t be in the Championship in 2025/26. That is quite some progress! That is without even mentioning this season’s cup runs and some of the magical moments that we have witnessed this season.

It has truly been an unforgettable season, and I have enjoyed every single minute of it even through some difficult and challenging personal circumstances. Roll on the beginning of August and the start of doing it all over again.

Before signing off, I wanted to offer a huge heartfelt thank you to all of you for reading, liking, commenting and sharing these weekly musings. It is truly a labour of love, and I am so thankful that we have such a wonderful football club with an ever-evolving story to write about.

See you all at Huddersfield (just let anything try to stop me this time!) and Up the Mighty O’s!!