Leyton Orient

Also written as L Orient.

The club

Leyton Orient trace their origins to the Glyn Cricket Club, formed in 1881, whose members began playing football as Orient in 1888. They became Clapton Orient in 1898, Leyton Orient after the Second World War, plain Orient in 1966, and Leyton Orient again in 1987. They play at Brisbane Road in Leyton, in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, where they have been since 1937, and which has carried the sponsored name of the BetWright Stadium since a two-year deal announced on 23 May 2025. Capacity is 9,271 across the Justin Edinburgh Stand, the East Stand, the North Stand and the Tommy Johnston South Stand, with residential flats built into the corners behind the south end. A hybrid GrassMaster pitch was laid in the 2023 close season. Tottenham Hotspur Women have played their home matches there since 2022. Orient play in all red and are known as the O's.

Recent seasons

Orient were 11th in League Two in 2020/21 with 61 points and 13th in 2021/22 with 58. They won League Two in 2022/23 with 91 points, Richie Wellens's first full season, and finished 11th in League One in 2023/24 with 65 points.

The 2024/25 season was the best of the run and ended in the worst way. Orient finished sixth with 78 points, beat Stockport County in the play-off semi-final after drawing 2-2 at Brisbane Road and 1-1 after extra time at Edgeley Park, winning the shootout 4-1, and then lost the final 1-0 to Charlton Athletic at Wembley on 25 May 2025, Macaulay Gillesphey scoring on 31 minutes in front of 76,193.

The reaction was severe. In 2025/26 Orient were 20th in League One with 52 points from 46 games, 14 wins, ten draws and 22 defeats. The oddity of that season is that Dom Ballard scored 23 goals and finished as the top scorer in the entire division while his club were fighting relegation. Orient remain in League One for 2026/27.

Honours and landmarks

Third Division South champions 1955/56. Third Division champions 1969/70. National League champions 2018/19. League Two champions 2022/23. No major national trophy.

Orient have had one season in the top flight, 1962/63, promoted as runners-up in Division Two under Johnny Carey and relegated after a single campaign. Their best FA Cup run was to the semi-finals in 1977/78. They came back from 2-0 down to beat Chelsea 3-2 in the fifth round in 1972, and reached the fifth round again in 2010/11 before losing 5-0 at Arsenal.

Two landmarks define the modern club. On 22 April 2017 a 3-0 defeat to Crewe Alexandra relegated Orient to the National League and ended a 112-year stay in the Football League, the end point of Francesco Becchetti's ownership. On 27 April 2019, under Justin Edinburgh, they won the National League and came straight back. Edinburgh died that June and the main stand carries his name. An earlier crisis produced the club's best-known piece of folklore: chairman Tony Wood sold Orient for £5 in 1995, filmed as the documentary Club for a Fiver.

Record club attendance is 38,219 against Tottenham Hotspur in Division Two on 16 March 1929, set before the move to Brisbane Road. The Brisbane Road record is 34,345 against West Ham United in the FA Cup fourth round on 25 January 1964. Tommy Johnston is the leading scorer with 121 league goals across two spells, 1956-58 and 1959-61. Jobi McAnuff is the most-capped player, with 22 for Jamaica. The record fee received is £1.5m from Swansea City for Ethan Galbraith in July 2025.

Notable scorelines

Record victory: 8-0, achieved more than once, including against Crystal Palace on 12 November 1955. Record defeat: 0-8 against Aston Villa in the FA Cup fourth round on 30 January 1929. In the 2001 Third Division play-off final at the Millennium Stadium, lost to Walsall, Chris Tate scored for Orient after 27 seconds, the fastest goal in a play-off final at that venue. Orient also lost the 2014 League One play-off final to Rotherham United on penalties at Wembley.

Head-to-head notes

Orient do not publish all-time head-to-head records on their website, and no published all-time record could be established for any of their 2026/27 League One opponents. Three recent contacts are worth having. They lost the 2025 play-off final to Charlton Athletic, who are no longer in the division. They beat Stockport County on penalties in that season's semi-final and meet Stockport again in the league this season. And they beat Lincoln City 2-0 in a pre-season friendly in Spain in July 2026, though Lincoln have since gone up to the Championship.

Oxford United, their EFL Cup first round opponents, are also League One opponents in 2026/27, so the two clubs will meet three times.

Right now (2026/27)

Richie Wellens has been head coach since 9 March 2022, appointed on a two-and-a-half-year deal, and is the club's longest-serving manager in years. He won League Two with Orient in 2022/23, having previously won it with Swindon Town in 2019/20 and the EFL Trophy with Salford City. Nigel Travis is chairman.

Summer arrivals include goalkeeper Nathan Baxter from Watford on 3 July, midfielder Isaac Hayden from Queens Park Rangers on 10 July, centre-back Joseph Olowu from Stockport County on 21 July, and wingers Armando Dobra and Tony Springett. No fees were published for any of them. Sonny Perkins left for Wigan Athletic on 26 June and Azeem Abdulai joined Hibernian on 4 July.

Pre-season was mixed: a 4-1 win over Enfield Town, 2-1 defeats to both Cheshunt and Hornchurch, a 2-0 win over Lincoln City in Spain, and a penalty shootout win over Southend United.

Orient host Oxford United in the EFL Cup first round at Brisbane Road on Saturday 8 August 2026 at 3pm. The League One season starts the weekend of 14 to 16 August, and Orient's first league fixture is at home to Sheffield Wednesday on 15 August 2026.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.