So, if you believe my blog the 2014/15 season ended for me in late August with the excitement of a late Europa League qualifier at Spurs and an early FA Cup game between Cray Wanderers and Molesey. This isn't quite true. My intention had been to spend the season watching as many different teams and competitions as possible and write about that. Variety is after all the spice of life. Orient wise I was pretty drained after the play off defeat and was wary of what the new owners would bring. But my surprise acquisition of a pair of season tickets (damn your eyes internet competitions!) meant that inevitably my season ended up being one Orient game after another. And golly gosh, what fun that turned out to be. I have never felt the urge to be one team blogger so my inspiration flew out of the window. In retrospect, if ever there was a season to provide material for an Orient blog it was the one that has just finished. Oh well.
So, I embraced the close season firmly and vowed not to think about football until, ooh, at least the middle of July. Without the distraction of a World Cup or European Championship there would be nothing to grab me. But my relationship with football like many people's doesn't follow logical paths. International week you say? Feeds of CONCACAF qualifiers? An England game? Those'll do nicely. Followed by snippets of the Women's World Cup and Copa America as allowed by my pathetic ability to stay up until the late kick off times. A football free summer? Don't believe a word of it. My eye turned to fixture lists. I started making elaborate plans for July and August and all the pre-season games I would take in. I even ignored the fact that I don't generally do friendlies.
It occurs to me that my enthusiasm for football increases the less football there is within reach of me actually attending. It's all very well getting excited by a stream of Belize vs Dominican Republic but it isn't a substitute for going to games. But when all you have is faraway exotic stuff on a buffering and glitchy screen and lists of friendlies and league constitutions to pore over it is east to forget about the annoying crap that gets under my skin during the season itself. The stupid stuff people say at games,.in the pub, on the telly, in the office and most of all on the bloody internet. All of that is far less intrusive. Football is enjoyable again in the abstract. Just like it was when there was barely any on the telly and most of my football fix was coming from hours spent going through Rothmans, World Soccer and Non league directories. Football is as much the lists and numbers on the pages of these esteemed publications as it is a game played on grass. I am only half joking here.
I often bang on about how the vitriol surrounding the game, especially online, gets my goat. So, I decided to put myself to the test. The joys of summer Europa League football were due to arrive in East London thanks to West Ham's impeccable disciplinary record. A tie against giants of the Andorran game FC Lusitans was right up my alley as was the tenner all in ticket price. I hadn't been to Upton Park for nigh on a quarter of a century so it felt like a good opportunity to have a last look at the place too. I often burble on, like Orient fans do, about hating West Ham. After all, we are the West Ham haters. But that's slightly hypocritical isn't it. A bit vitriolic. My overriding memory of late 80s and early 90s West Ham games I attended was of seas of brown leather jacket clad men swarming around Upton Park tube and down Green Street. I didn't spot a single one this time. In the event a very young West Ham did enough to comfortably beat a predictably poor and bus parking Lusitans team in front of a newsworthy sellout crowd. What did surprise me was that I felt none of the dislocation at the Boleyn Ground that I have in previous years watching Europa League games at White Hart Lane. As an Orient fan my feelings regarding the Olympic Stadium are understandably a little complicated but it will be a great shame for London football when West Ham vacate their current home.
It is unlikely that England will ever switch to a summer season. But, if they do there is a lot to be said for 6PM kick-offs on a July Saturday. I popped down to Dulwich Hamlet to see their friendly against German lower league side Altona 93. A friendship between the 2 clubs and fans due in part to a shared year of foundation had led to this friendly and hopefully a rematch in Germany in 2 years time. A below strength Hamlet side shipped goals every time Altona attacked in the first half to go in 5 down at the break. Respectability was restored in the second half once a first choice eleven was on the pitch for the final 30 minutes. In the end Altona won 5-3. A game that was worth every penny of the £10 entrance unlike the match at West Ham. Over 700 were there including lots of away fans. A really enjoyable football evening in many ways.
Failing to get outraged by Raheem Sterling or even Fabian Delph I continue through the summer trying to ignore as best I can the circus of rumour, hearsay and downright lies surrounding the various transfer manoeuvres in the Premier League. I cannot help but be a bit distracted by the same goings on in E10 but as Orient's pre-season is either not very interesting or in Spain I can't be bothered to get too involved even as I toyed with the idea of Braintree on Friday. If I were going to go to Woking in the summer it would have been for their sadly cancelled game against Seychelles rather than our upcoming friendly there. Children's birthday parties have put paid to me getting to another Saturday game before the season begins but although I couldn't quite get the logistics to work to get to tomorrow's QPR vs Dundee United game at Barnet's still new ground at the other end of the Jubilee Line I certainly could get to one of Clapton's 2 games this week. The Old Spotted Dog isn't to everyone's taste but I love it. Neither are the renowned Clapton Ultras but they know how to watch a friendly. In spite of the pitch managing to be both an arid dust bowl and have the longest grass I have ever paid to see a game played on Clapton and Croydon played out a pretty entertaining game. Croydon won 2-0 in the end but Clapton looked a far more convincing proposition than the last time I saw them almost a year ago in another pre-season game against the short-lived Ealing Town. Hopefully I;ll get to a few competitive Clapton games this season. The potential that surrounds Clapton is huge. If the ownership of the club could be sorted out by the fans things could really take off. As it is it does look as though there are some tiny incremental moves towards improving the ground. Tonight was low key but it was a proper game of football, something lacking in a great deal of pre-season games nowadays.
Onwards and upwards to the beginning of the season. I might even manage to blog beyond the early knocking of September this time around.
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