Leyton Orient

On 1 January 1990 Leyton Orient were placed 18th in Division Three. On 31 December 1999 the O’s bade farewell to the Nineties some 29 places lower, the 91st team out of 92 in the Football League.

In the middle of the decade the club very nearly went out of business – at one point there was not enough money to pay the Brisbane Road milkman – while a little later the infamous ‘Club For A Fiver’ documentary was aired to the nation on Channel 4.

It’s probably fair to say that in the club’s 130-year-old history the Nineties – even by Leyton Orient standards – was not one of the better decades.

Incredibly though, despite all the turmoil and stress the time brought, both on and off the pitch, the 10 years saw more than its fair share of memorable matches. Games that are still regularly talked and argued about in the Supporters’ Club and in similar local places of refreshment, on the Orient message boards and generally amongst the Leyton faithful many years on.

The e-book recalls eight of the Nineties best, from the infamous David Elleray Brentford match in 1991 through to the final game of the decade, the 5–1 victory at Chester that took us off the bottom of the League.

Each match will bring back memories of a traumatic, dramatic yet never un-entertaining period at East London’s premier club, Leyton Orient.


Martin Strong was born a few miles from Brisbane Road and has supported the O’s for 44 years. He has seen well over a thousand Leyton Orient matches, at over 130 different venues around the country since then.

He has been writing every month in the The Leyton Orient-ear – the second longest running fanzine in the country – for 25 years, as well as writing various articles in books on the club over the years.