“I can’t
remember a day when I haven’t turned up to work to find deep holes in the ground”
(OPLC) decision to award the stadium to West Ham, and second, to launch an application for a judicial review that calls into question the legality of the loan that had been arranged by Newham Council to finance West Ham’s bid for the location.
The move came only a day after Spurs launched its own judicial review, claiming the £40m loan from the Council to West Ham was ‘improper’.
“The biggest gripe the club have with the West Ham move is the fact that it’s encroaching on our traditional fan base,” explains Colin. “When West Ham set out their bid for the stadium, they promised to offer heavily discounted tickets to ensure they fill the stadium. ”A club like Leyton Orient cannot compete with this, and our directors feared that younger supporters would choose to support a bigger Premier League club with a brand new stadium with cheaper tickets than a small club like us,” he adds.
It will be a bitter pill to swallow for the O’s if the West Ham plans come to fruition, not only because they’ll be stepping on the toes of the club, but because Orient has worked tirelessly to strengthen links with the community. It has established a new core fan base in the area, based on grass-roots and youth football, spearheaded by its Leyton Orient Community Sports Programme,
which, since
establishment eight years ago as an independent charity, has provided sports and educational initiatives for young people across
North-east London. The recent
turmoil is all in a day’s work for Colin, however, who insists that his only
concern is to deliver the pitch to the highest possible standard and meet the demands of players and the board. This season alone, Colin has been put through his paces in no uncertain manner, with a host of televised league, cup and international (England v USA ladies) matches, including the climax of the club’s impressive FA Cup run, which saw them reach the 5th round - facing Arsenal at home in front of a sell-out crowd.
The fixture, which saw the hosts grab a late goal and earn a lucrative away tie at the Emirates, typified the kind of work that Colin is expected to undertake at Orient.
“Sometimes it’s not always a matter of delivering the perfect pitch for the occasion, I can be called on to create an environment that helps our players out,
or makes it harder for opponents - the Arsenal game was a case in point,” Colin recalls.
“The management, knowing how good Arsenal were at playing the ball around, wanted me to make it a bit rough for them, so I was tasked with doing something you rarely have to think of in this industry. The plan paid off though, and it demonstrated perfectly the intricacies and high expectations of professional groundsmanship now - it’s as much a results game for us as it is the players.”
Passion for the job is what drives Colin day to day and, as a ‘sole practitioner’, that quality can see you through a schedule that can be arduous, especially during the long winter days working alone.
The combination of an antiquated and
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