If I had to use just a couple of sentences to explain my love story with the Orient, I would lazily borrow the first couple of lines of ‘Fever pitch’ by Nick Hornby:
“I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it “.
Simple as that.
It is actually quite odd when people ask me which football team I support. I am Italian and live in Southern Italy right now; everyone here supports local teams or one of the big ones in Serie A. Supporting an overseas team is quite inconceivable for the people here and, probably, rightly so.
I have always been in love with English football, thanks to my mum, an English teacher. I was systematically sent to England each summer - to my sheer delight. I remember sleeping in the same room with the son of my host family in Kent, loads of years ago; a Spurs fan.
We used to play football in the back garden and, when I was in goal, he’d imagine I was David Seaman, the ponytailed Arsenal goalkeeper. This probably led me to identify to Arsenal, which eventually became my first love and, at the same time, a big disappointment.
A friend of mine, lifelong disillusioned Gunner, told me the place for me was at Brisbane Road, telling me the football experience I was looking for was at Orient.
On the evening of the 28th October 2014, I got out of Northwick Park Hospital, my workplace at the time, a little bit earlier. I was in a hurry because I had a ticket for a Leyton Orient match, against Preston North End. For this very reason I was laughed at by one of my colleagues, an Oxford United fan; at the time, I couldn’t obviously understand why.
My only previous knowledge of Leyton Orient was through Fifa. I used to - and would still do were not Orient a non-league team - take Leyton Orient in career mode and make them win Premier and Champions League. I loved the gold Nike kit.
I remember coming out of Leyton tube station that evening and being hungry, stopping at the KFC near the ground for some food. In the previous days I’d been on the Orient forums and asked for some guidance, as if I sensed I was coming there to stay. I was told to talk to Keren Harrison. She welcomed me into the Supporters Club that night and introduced me to loads of other people I am still in touch with today. I was welcomed as one of them.
Being so naive to Brisbane Road, I had bought a ticket in the East stand and ended up watching the match alone with my steaming hot chicken pie and 300 Preston fans. It was a 2-0, Tuesday night home defeat against a Preston side which gained promotion to the Championship months later.
I remember peering at the utter shambles on the pitch (Plasmati & co., remember?) in silence, through merciless, driving rain and thinking I was witnessing a piece of sheer beauty, an expression of true, hopeless love.
Everybody in the ground was.
I came home drenched to the bones that night, but vowed to come back and get involved, suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it...
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