ORIENT'S poor home attendances this season have been Poles apart from their excellent form on the pitch - and manager Martin Ling has admitted that he may have to explore a different avenue when signing players in the future.

With a large Polish community now setting up home in Leyton, O's boss Ling has revealed that he may even consider signing a player from their native country to try and add a few more numbers to the crowds at Brisbane Road.

Despite the east Londoners being in Pole-position in League One for much of the campaign, their average home attendances are the fourth worst in the division at just 4977.

And with the club's attempts at ticket initiatives this season failing to muster much success, Ling has stated that it may take the arrival of a foreign player to try and tap into the huge multicultural community that is now living in this part of the capital.

He said: "After the Swindon game I stayed down with a few people I know from that part of the world and we got talking about our attendances.

"Not wanting to blow our trumpet, but they said we were the best team they had played this season and couldn't understand why we are getting so few people to our home games.

"I'm not sure myself because despite making massive strides forward on the pitch from a few years ago, our crowds aren't that much better than when we were in League Two.

"Of course we are fortunate that we have a hardcore base of around 4,500 fans that come every week and they do deserve praise for sticking with us, but we do need to build on this if we are to move forward.

"The chairman and other people at the club have looked at ways to try and attract bigger crowds, but so far we haven't had much success.

"At the moment our ground is surrounded by people from different ethnic backgrounds that don't go to watch football and maybe we need to find a way to get them interested and perhaps we could sign a player that would bring them into Brisbane Road.

"There is a big Asian population, although finding a good Asian player out there would be hard because there aren't many about. I am however told that there is a large Polish community forming in Leyton and it would certainly be a lot easier to find a decent player from that country.

"At this moment in time it is just a thought, but perhaps if things don't improve we will have to give it serious consideration."

At present there are 16 Polish players listed as plying their trade with Premier League and Football League clubs. These are: Adrian Cielewicz (Manchester City), Tomasz Cywka and Tomasz Kupisz (Wigan), Wojciech Szczêsny and £ukasz Fabiañski (Arsenal), Lukas Jutkiewicz (Everton), Przemysaw Kazimierczak (Bolton Wanderers), Artur Krysiak (Birmingham City), Kuszczak March (Manchester United), Grzegorz Rasiak, Marek Saganowski and Bartosz Biakowski (Southampton), Alex Cisak (Leicester City), Bartosz lusarski (West Bromwich Albion), Jarosaw Fojut (Luton Town) and Pawe Abbott (Darlington).