I guess from the moment my dad decided to take me to Brisbane Road for the first time nearly 50 years ago, I was destined for a lifetime of heartache, sorrow and pain.

Half a century on, and you would have thought that I would be used to the misery by now and that nothing would leave me distraught anymore as, from following the O's for so long, I'd seen it all before.

After all I've been through seeing us miss out on Division One on the last day of the season in 1974. Back in 1981-82 I saw every game home and away as we finished bottom of the Second Division. I saw us lose 5-4 to Hull in 1984 having been 4-1 up with 20 minutes to play and of course there was the capitulation at the play-off final just six months ago.

Surely any sane person by now would accept that being an Orient supporter means you are going to continuously be heartbroken and take it as a matter of fact when something bad happens.

And then came last Saturday. It could only happen to the O's, that they could fail to capitalise playing against ten men by not going on to win the game, and then worse still give away a goal eight minutes into injury time to send us home empty handed and plonk us in the division's bottom four.

What a difference a year's made. This time in 2013 we were breaking records left, right and centre. Best start ever to a season, longest sequence of games scoring away every match, one maybe two strikers looking to be the first in 36 years to score 20 league goal in a campaign.

Yes 12 months on and we're still looking at breaking records. Now, however we're trying to avoid the club record 14 home league games without a victory, set in our one season in Division One in 1962-63 - a failure to take the three points against Crewe on Saturday will take us up to nine in the current sequence.

At least by defeating Northampton last Tuesday in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy means we've avoided the record 12 game home sequence, including all matches, without a victory set in 1966.

Indeed the glorious JPT I am confidently predicting will be the saviour of Leyton Orient this season.

Providing the referee does not add nine minutes of injury time at the Priestfield next month, I'm confident of defeating Gillingham in the southern semis and then we'll be just one tie away from yet another trip to Wembley next March.

Yes the famous old place is going to start to feel like a second home to us, in much the same way I suppose as it was in 1930 when we played league matches there. We'll start feeling almost as at home there as an NFL team.

Lets just hope they sort out the playing surface before March - it won't help the O's slick passing game if the pitch is like it was for the recent England game.

Certainly you can't see any other team from East London getting to set foot on the hallowed turf in the not to distant future.

And what of the league? Well there's certainly still a long way to go before we start planning trips to Accrington Stanley and AFC Wimbledon in 2015-2016. The local derby between the Orient and Dagenham and Redbridge to decide the top league team in East London will have to wait another season, when we start to head up the league as we surely will do in 2015.

Yes, I for one am confident the five or six 33-year-old ex-Italian internationals our rulers have lined up for us in the January transfer window will do the business for us come the new year and we'll be roaring up the division faster than a pizza express delivery van, come the spring.

It will help of course if all the players can manage to make it through at least one week without picking up a long term injury in training or during the match and maybe we can look to improve on our record of having the worst discipline in League One by getting a few less bookings every game.

If we can sort everything out I'm predicting a finish in the top half of the league, with the Johnstone's Paint trophy enriching the already buldging trophy cabinet at Brisbane Road. And to top it all, we'll have the whole of Italy starting to support us having seen Vincelot, Clarkey and co star in the reality TV show on Francesco Becchetti's Italian television channel.

And by then that eighth minute of injury time last Saturday at Gillingham will have become a distant memory.

Up the O's.

Martin Strong is author of the book '60 Greatest Leyton Orient Matches of the Tijuana Taxi Era' available at the club shop and on Amazon.