Leyton Orient – Games of the Eighties

For the Orient (and subsequently Leyton Orient) the eighties were a decade that can be described as a fairly typical one in the club’s 130 year history. There was the usual share of pain in the league, the standard sprinkling of heroic cup performances and, of course, more than the odd financial crisis to deal with over the ten year period.

In the league our top position was achieved around Christmas in 1980. A 1–0 win at Chelsea on 20 December took us to fifth place in the Second Division. The game was covered the next day on ‘The Big Match’, and Brian Moore commented at the time that we looked a good outside bet for promotion to the top flight.

Unfortunately the First Division never quite materialized for East London’s premier club in 1980. Indeed, by the time the O’s had lost at home to Halifax on 3 January 1987 we had collapsed so dramatically that we were the 89 best team in the country, 52 places below where we had been when we ate the Christmas turkey in 1980.

We recovered somewhat to finish the decade in a stronger position and even managed a promotion. However, looking back, the most surprising part of it all was the fact that one man was in part or full control through all of the earlier agony, and even remained there into the nineties.

The battle cry for so long on the Brisbane Road terraces was ‘Clark Out’, yet the man quite unbelievably remained at the club. These days he would have been shown the door years before he took to the directors box – after the Wrexham play-off victory to a rapturous reception from the home faithful – but back then times were different.

The chairman was spending much of his time abroad, oblivious to the Leyton Stadium chants, and so our European Cup winner stayed at the helm in the dark days of the mid-eighties.

He was there as assistant manager or manager for 13 of the 14 classic games from the eighties featured here – matches sad old men like me still talk about when we meet these days in the Supporter’s Club, or at other places of light refreshment around Bazza’s Stadium of Flats.

Here’s hoping they will maybe bring back a memory or two of when we used to stand on the terraces, when you could queue up for a burger and still watch the game going on, and when you could laugh at Motty, Barry Davies and Brian Moore climbing the ladder up to the TV gantry.

Up the O’s and Herb Albert.<p>About the author

Martin Strong was born a few miles from Brisbane Road and has been an Orient supporter for 45 years (though it feels like 450).

He has suffered watching them on well over a thousand occasions since 1967, seeing them play at over 130 different venues from Woodford Town to Wembley. 

Games of the Eighties is his third e-book, following on from Games of the Nineties and Games of the Noughties.