Being Boo

Southeast of Stockholm there’s a football club called Boo FF. Imagine the chants at home games Orient fans.

Russell Slade was angry after the 1-1 draw against Oldham yesterday. The late equaliser one reason to be fuming but most of all he was mad for being booed at full time. I think it’s OK to show emotions, but manager and supporters both could do with a bit of, think before you speak, humble pie.

There are definitely times when teams deserve to be booed off the pitch. Yesterday was not one of those moments. Even more frequent are the occasions when fans deserve criticism for what they perceive as support. A manager should defend his team but also realise that a stand of supporters has a pretty low combined IQ. It cannot be argued with in any usable fashion. Just don’t go there Russell.

If you fall into the supporter category that have trouble seeing the whole picture and need instant gratification. The option to project your disappointment onto somebody, or something else. Well then, make Boo FF your team of choice. Win or lose you still get to boo. Always go home happy, proudly flying the burgundy and black of Boo.

Orient threw away two points yesterday. That’s my opinion. If you disagree it’s fine to argue with me. You may not boo. Because even though the effort was less than stellar it wasn’t indifferent or bad enough to warrant jeering. Orient should have put the game out of sight during the first 30 minutes of the second half. But our attackers are far from deadly at the moment. Lisbie cannot hit the target. Mooney can but opts for spectacular and fails. Dagnall and Simpson are the terrible twins at the moment. A for effort, F for finishing. The only reason to pick Chris ahead of Robbie is that the former has a better historical goal scoring record. That’s how I pick my teams anyway.

Until automatic promotion is truly impossible, as in: We cannot finish in the top two! I call bullshit on your schemes to rest players in preparation for the playoffs. Slade should field his best starting eleven from those fit. Fight to the finish. Charge of the light brigade. If you think this Orient team cannot surprise us you haven’t been paying much attention during the last year or so.

Seven games to go. It may end in the playoffs. Whatever. Stand up for the Orient. Cheering all the way. Save the negative stuff for a cold rainy day in November. Sharing an away end with 25 other Orient fans watching the team being dumped out of the Johnstone’s Paint by Bury. The score line 0-4 with 20 minutes to go. Then you can moan. But only then!

On my way to work this morning I passed a redhead that smelled like candy. Boooo!

From Bees to Bastards

So Orient lost this rather important football match. A solitary Trotta goal separated the two sides. Here’s my take on a game where I, for once, actually had a view from downstream.

If club crests ever where to start fights, the only way for Brentford to beat Orient would be if Wyverns turned out to be really allergic to bee stings. You know like some people are to nuts. Me I’m probably allergic to Alan McCormack. I find him really hard to swallow.

McCormack being one of two players on the pitch yesterday with ‘get out of jail free’ cards somewhere in their kit. The other one being Nathan Clarke. Perhaps Captain Fantastic plays like this every game. In that case I salute him for having powers of misdirection greater than many a professional illusionist. But what I usually hear is a lot different from what I saw. Walking off without a booking was lucky.

Lucky like Clayton Donaldson who seemed in a bad mood all game. Brentford fans have a point when they say Orient were favoured by the referee. But Donaldson could very well have been sent off when he stormed into that scuffle during the first half that saw him and Gary Sawyer receive yellow cards. As for who started it that’s easier - McCormack.

Speaking of things that are easy. The Orient front two was a case in point. Kevin Lisbie did a lot of running and tried to set up his team mates. Not complicating things but at the moment being let down by his goalscoring touch. David Mooney on the other hand has that touch but sometimes gives the impression that scoring simply isn’t enough. It has to be pretty as well. Frankly Moons we don’t care, just bang them in. Pretty can wait.

Romain Vincelot not only had a great game he has a pretty great beard as well. The only thing missing from his performance was a yellow card. The threat of that tenth yellow of the season hanging over the head of us supporters like the blade of a guillotine. Just pick it up already! Rip it off our worried minds like an old band-aid. Get those two games out of the way.

Marvin Bartley and Jamie Ness probably agree with me on the Vincelot suspension saga since that would mean more game time for the both of them. Orient have a strong bench at the moment. One that could cope with Vincelot sitting out two games. Looking at the names of substitutes this season compared to a few years back there really are names on there that can change games. Perhaps Robbie Simpson should have felt more at home sharing a bench with a selection of Geraint William’s players. He would have stood out like the obvious choice which is always a nice feeling.

As far as managers go my distinct feeling is that Brentford really need to finish in the top two. Warburton inherited a good team with tactics et.al. from Uwe Rösler. I don’t think he could guide a team successfully through the playoffs. Russell Slade could, I’m sure of that. But if I get a choice I’ll gladly let Warburton prove me wrong. When it comes to success for baldies my money is on Slade.

I do a lot of stupid things with my money. Gambling isn’t one of them. I do have an account on a large betting site though. With all of one hundred Swedish kronor on there. The only reason being that this gives access to reliable streams of football matches. Like Orient v Brentford. I still had Dave Victor on as commentator even though Orient World was a few seconds behind the TV images. As I understood it the Sky commentators were biased in Brentford’s favour. In those cases a sense of deja vu is preferable.

I would have preferred to win. But this loss most likely didn’t define our season. We don’t know yet what the 2013/14 season legacy will be. It may have been this game, or perhaps those three losses when Eldin Jakupovic went back to Hull. Losing Jamie Jones to injury. It may be a thing in the future. Vincelot’s tenth yellow card. Wolves at home. Promotion. A playoff final. Mooney scoring twenty league goals. There’s nine games left. History is yet to be written. Orient not ready to be written off even if Brentford and Wolves fans want that very much. It just isn’t true. It might even turn out to be false. Keep the faith you pessimistic bastards!

Kettle jokes

Tuesday night the twitter feeds of Orient fans were saturated with jokes about the referee in charge of Orient v Stevenage. Today there really isn’t a single Kettle joke left untold. Not one.

Anyway, Nigel Miller, Andy D’Orsu, and Trevor Kettle walk into a bar in Wales. Just as they’re about to sit down Sean Thornton speak out from his place at the end. Hey! You lot - f***off! And they did. Safe in the knowledge that the amount of untold Kettle jokes in the world really is zero!

If you look up Stevenage on Swedish Wikipedia the full entry reads “Stevenage is a town and a district in Hertfordshire in England with about 79,400 inhabitants. It is situated between Letchworth Garden City in the north and Welwyn Garden City in the south. The town’s football team is Stevenage Borough FC who play in League One. Formula One-driver Lewis Hamilton was born in Stevenage”.

Since I visited Stevenage in August I should be in a position to add to that article. But except for that Kevin Lisbie header the only thing that pops into my head are Cheesy Chips. Adding a few lines to Wikipedia about the Cheesy Chip Scandal of 2013 could maybe cause an influx of Swedish visitors as long as they do not realise we’re talking the British version of Skärholmen. A Stockholm suburb who in a desperate attempt to be more international decided to drop all vowels from their name, calling themselves SKHLM.

As for the game it was all Orient. Moses getting things off to a great start and Dagnall creating that comfortable two goal cushion. Just how you want a home game against the bottom team to work out. One-sided, smooth and unproblematic.

Soon after 2-0 I got a text from a colleague at work. Problems! So as the half drew to a close, and Jimmy Smith had that shot on goal, I listened to the game while debugging and looking for a corrupt database record.

The guy who texted me, Magnus, has actually been to Brisbane Road. Once in London to see some PL-game he needed something to do on the Saturday. I suggested Orient who at the time was to entertain Notts County in the FA-Cup. Initially he was really impressed with one Orient player. Speedy with what looked like bags of technical ability. How come this guy didn’t play at a higher level? It was revealed the moment he chased a through ball, dummied two defenders and then sliced his finish well wide. The player's name? Jabo!

A wonderful player perhaps somewhat lacking in clinicality. The one ability Stevenage manager Graham Westley brought up time and again in his post-match interview. If only his players had been more clinical the game would have ended otherwise. Well Graham you really got the tactics spot on, the formation, and the substitutions. Especially the subs made a LOT of sense.

Personally I’m really grateful that Orient isn’t a club with a track record of signing strikers lacking in clinicality. I mean using the short horizon of the recent years in League One, not a single name comes to mind. Look I’m really trying here. Help me out people. Orient strikers since 2006 lacking clinicality. No, noo, nooope, drawing a total blank. Never happened!