On This Day in 1975, Orient pulled off a great win over a second placed Aston Villa team.
Aston Villa had had a very good season and were joint second alongside Norwich and Sunderland. The latter had a wonderful team, which Orient had drawn against earlier that year, that included Jim Montgomery, Bobby Moncur, Bryan Robson and former-O Vic Halom.
Only Manchester United sat above Villa and United gained promotion that season to the top tier, remaining in the top division ever since. Furthermore, the Claret and Blue side had won the League Cup just three weeks prior to their game at Orient, back when teams outside the top tier had a chance to get to the final of the competition.
When the two sides had met the year before Orient's promotion was at stake and, painstakingly, the game ended as a draw, meaning Orient would not enter the First Division which was something the O's haven't done since 1963.
Manager of Aston Villa this time around was Ron Saunders, who scored two hat tricks against Orient in the 1963/64 season. Despite his success in the past against the O's, he could not inspire his side to win as Orient won 1-0. The team that day was Jackson, Grealish, Fisher, Allen, Hoadley, Walley, Cunningham, Bennett, Bullock. Queen and Heppolette. It was 'Tricky Ricky', Heppolette, who scored that day.
Just under 10,000 came down to Bribane Road that day, which was 8,000 less than those who saw Villa beat the O's back in September, when Derrick Downing found the net for the travelling side.
While Orient would end the season poorly, finishing 12th. Only due to scraping a few draws and results going their way, Villa finished second, just three points behind United, and went into the First Division. They finished 16th the following year and went out of the UEFA Cup in the first round, but another English side did win the trophy; Bob Paisley's Liverpool.
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