Even in a normal year I am more than happy to shut off all thoughts of Orient during the summer, especially after the sort of season we had last year. I have no interest in wild transfer speculation about players I can't pretend to have anything more than a vague recollection of maybe seeing play a couple of times. I gave up on pre-season friendlies a long time ago as they are almost uniformly dull and completely meaningless. Ironically after yesterday's postponement I sat and watched a 10 v 10, Orient v Orient training match and it was 100 times more competitive than any friendly I've attended at Brisbane Road.
Of course this isn't a normal year and the three weeks leading into the season were dominated by the Olympic Games in our back yard. I ended up being even more cut off from Orient news than ever before. The fact it had to end was bad enough but the fact it was to be followed up by a football season felt, by comparison, thoroughly depressing. A lot has been made of the "Olympic athlete good, professional footballer bad" debate but it goes deeper than that. It was the general atmosphere around the games at all of the venues (and I was lucky enough to be at most of them). In a nutshell I'd put it as the overwhelming positive and sporting atmosphere of the Olympic crowds, verses the cynical and pessimistic average football crowd. A prime example is the first morning of Jessica Ennis' heptathlon and the high jump competition. The support for Ennis and every British athlete was deafening and turned up to 11 for Ennis. However, as the competition drew to a conclusion with only a few athletes left jumping the crowd was behind every single one of them, whether they were British, Lithuanian or American. Clearances were cheered and failures met with disappointment.
Compare that to supporters of Chelsea and Liverpool, to name just two teams, offering unequivocal support for their players regardless of what they did. Or closer to home, Os fans jeering Brentford's injured goalkeeper at Griffin Park in 2011, taunting him because it meant he would miss playing at Wembley the following week. Football is a different sort of sport (which should be added to the long list of reasons as to why it shouldn't be part of the Olympics schedule) and no one expects fans to cheer on the other team. But it IS a sport and a sport whose image would be greatly improved if fans, players and managers remembered that every once in a while.
For every bad example I can recall there is a good one as well. Cyrille Regis being given a standing ovation at Brisbane Road when he was substituted playing for Chester City in his last season as a pro for one. It would be nice if the ratio was a bit more in favour of the positive though. I spent 7 or 8 years travelling to every away game in the supporters club coach but gave it up after the promotion season. Why would I do that after slogging around the 'cosy' League 2 grounds 'steeped in character'? Because even 2 or 3 games from the end of that season no one was enjoying it. They'd spend the entire return journeys complaining and moaning about what we'd just witnessed - as we sat in the top 3! I get enough of people spending all day moaning at work, I didn't need it at weekends as well and so I started to enjoy free Saturday's away from football.
My desire to see Brisbane Road a more positive and vibrant cathedral of sport is probably never more likely to fall on deaf ears than now. I've dragged myself to Brisbane Road twice and seen a dire performance against Stevenage off the back of an opening day thrashing at Tranmere and then a postponement followed by a lengthy thunderstorm. This off of the back of a dreadful season as we stumbled our way to safety and a summer that has seen ballers replaced by brawlers. Russell Slade has said he thinks that our league has moved from a division where passing can thrive, to a more physical competition. He has therefore got a like for like replacement for Stephen Dawson but doesn't think he can do the same with Matthew Spring.
All goodwill for the manager and most of the team was entirely used up last season and the fans are now on a short fuse. I don't have a problem with that, after last season I also expect to see a quick improvement. The only problem is that operating in that sort of negative environment is never conducive to success and we could end up all talking ourselves into a downward spiral that we're unable to stop. The biggest complaint has been the lack of any sort of creativity in the team and maybe the signing of Lee Cook to address that should lead to a short amnesty to at least give the team a chance. I came away from the Stevenage game without anything to feel positive about but the fact is that Russell Slade will be given a certain amount of time to get things right this season and I'd prefer we suspended disbelief and willed the team to succeed rather than wait for us to fail. Otherwise I and probably most fans will be dreading going to Brisbane Road for quite a while.
