And so this week we’ve seen the start of another season of fun and games at east London’s only proper football stadium (certainly the only one where it doesn’t take an hour to get out of the ground at the end of the match.)

As regular connoisseurs of this papers Leyton Orient ‘fan’s view’ are doubtless aware, it’s a well-known fact that whenever I agree to do one of these things, the O’s always lose the game at the weekend. (Indeed I know some people at the club still blame me for the play-off final defeat in 2014 because I did the ‘fans view’ that week.)

The Newport game then saw the inevitable defeat for the O’s and it’s fair to say that the O’s have not made the best of starts to the campaign in 2016-2017.

The message that has to be given to Mr. Becchetti though, must surely be ‘non fatevi prendere dal panico’. (As I’m sure you are aware that is Italian for ‘don’t panic.’)

For the Orient it has actually often been the case that if we get off to a good start, it invariably ends in heartache come May. Only last season we won our first five and look where that got us. Indeed it was just two seasons before that that we won our first eight, yet it all ended in tears at Wembley.

Infact in our last two promotion seasons (though they were so long ago let’s face it, it’s a bit hard to remember) we got off to pretty dreadful openings to the season. In 1988-89 we didn’t win until our fifth game, while in 2005-06 we were just 12th in September.

I’m sure that when he has not been studying the laws in Albania, our owner has been brushing up on our club’s illustrious history and is thus well aware of these facts about his club.

 He must also be aware that we’ve got eight new recruits from the summer and that these must be given time to find their feet under Hess at Brisbane Road.

Our favourite Italian must also take into consideration the fact that two of our better players, Dean Cox and Paul McCallum are both returning from long term injuries and must be given a few weeks to get back to match fitness.

Andy Hessenthaler must be given time to blend his team together and I for one am confident that with a little patience he will get it right.

Just as it took Team GB a few days to get into their stride and start winning medals at the Rio Olympics, so it may take Team Becchetti a game or two to start getting those three points on the board every week.

There are nine months of the season remaining and I can still see us celebrating at the end of it having achieved promotion and having also won the Checkatrade Trophy, having defeated Fulham ‘B’ team in the final in front of 80,000 at Wembley.

It may be a bit of a worry in that the Division Two play-off final is scheduled for Sunday 28th May, just a day after the FA Cup Final so that if we reach both despite the fact that we’ve got a bigger squad this season there could be difficulties, but I’m confident that play-offs will not be an issue for us this year with automatic promotion having been achieved instead.

So my message to all O’s is to remain positive this year, and above all ‘mantenere la fede’ (keep the faith, of course).

Up The O’s

Martin.

Martin Strong’s second book about the O’s has just come out : ‘Leyton Orient The Road To Wembley (1967-1999)’ can be bought at the Supporter’s Club for £14.99 or direct from Martin for £18 including postage at 3, Roundmead Close, Loughton, Essex IG10 1QD.