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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Barry Glendenning

Out of the darkness comes light for Leyton Orient

Leyton Orient players get their celebrations on, luckily with the power on again.
Leyton Orient players get their celebrations on, luckily with the power on again. Photograph: Simon Dael/Shutterstock

THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Since finding themselves a penalty-kick from promotion to the Championship in 2014, Leyton Orient fans have been squeezed through the wringer until their pips squeaked in protest. Not long after that League One playoff final defeat at the hands of Rotherham, longtime owner Barry Hearn sold his stake in the club to Italian businessman Francesco Bechetti, a transaction the snooker-loopy promoter and lifelong Orient fan would later describe as “an absolute disaster”. Despite initially hosing plenty of money at the club, Bechetti’s reign went quickly downhill, ending three seasons, 11 managers and two relegations later when the O’s dropped out of the Football League after a 112-year stay, with the club in all manner of Bechetti-induced financial chaos.

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