A Little Bit Of History Repeating

It's Monday afternoon, and we've narrowly missed seeing the Orient first team squad leaving our Essex hotel rendezvous point to start their tortuous journey up to Scotland for the game against Carlisle. Fresh off the course and resplendent in the ubiquitous patterned golfing jumper, Martín is relaxed, friendly and more than happy to give the 'Ear a sizeable chunk of time to chat about all aspects of his career at Orient and elsewhere. He is articulate, open and interested to know what slant I will be putting on the article. After over a decade of - mostly successful - service to the club in a number of different capacities, I think it only fair to leave personal opinion and comment aside, and !et you hear from the man himself, in his own words.

" I honestly believe I would have turned it around, and that I deserved more time after the job I'd done for Orient, but it wasn't to be.

It happened on the Sunday morning, and I usually wrote my Racing Post column on the Monday to go into Tuesday's paper. After Sunday's events happened, my ghost writer called and I said I wasn't prepared to comment this week, as there was still the issue of sorting out my compensation. It was 'mutual consent', but I think we all know what that means! I was advised by the League Manager's Association not to go into print before l'd agreed a settlement with the football club, so I put the article back a week.

The question was asked: 'What are your feelings for the club now?' When I said that I 'didn't care about the results' it was because I can't do anything about it i.e. whatever I had done previously had an influence on the results. You don't work at a club for 12½ years and then simply not care; the truth is I can't influence whether they stay up or not now. I was determined to keep them in League One but once I'd left the job it was out of my hands. Whenever I've left a club I've never looked back; I've always looked forward, so some people took what I said entirely out of context. I just didn't want to waste valuable brain power on something I couldn't influence any more".

" My thinking was that I'd been at Leyton Orient for 12½ years, and I've been in the game for 26½ years continuously. Even though I don't think it got messy with the Chairman or the fans at the end of my tenure, I felt like I'd earned myself a break from the game for a period.

I'm quite happy to be out of it all. I'm not particularly bored, and for the first time I've had time to see my boy play football, and my girl play hockey; to be a proper father, rather than a very busy one, so it's been nice. We're now 6 or 7 weeks after the event and the break is still being enjoyed -I've not been away anywhere, but I have been at games all the time. Alan Curbishley once said to me that when I get the sack - and it will happen at some stage in my career -I had make sure I keep my face about the place, go to games and don't hide away if I feel like I've done nothing wrong.

But I have started looking around - it's the 'drug' of football, and I'm addicted. I've been weaned off it, and now I've started missing the adrenaline rush. I miss the training ground and the dressing room banter. The time I miss it the most is the Tuesday afternoon or Saturday morning - it's strange when Saturday comes and I don't go and get my suit on because I've been doing it non-stop for 26 years. The Southend game was a surreal scenario - I've been at Orient as player, youth team manager, assistant manager, and manager and not being involved for the first time, not being there to watch the game... it was a strange place to be in".

" I believe my CV is a strong CV After my 5½ years managing the club I certainly feel like I've left it in better shape than when I started, so the CV will get me another job. The balancing act is: do I go into a club that needs salvaging, or do I wait for the summer when there should be a nucleus of jobs available for me to go for?

I've put my CV in for one job so for, which was the Brighton one. I think it's a club at a low ebb, but with a lot of potential, but I wasn't offered an interview for the job - their choice was Russell Slade, although he's only there until the end of the season. It could have been an interesting scenario if they'd have chosen me, as I would have been in the away dugout on Saturday!

In the meantime I've been working for Hibernian; doing some scouting for them within League Two, League One and I'm off to a Championship game tomorrow night to watch a player for them. I've been doing it for a week now - they want to improve their scouting network in England, so I'm watching a couple of games a week for them. Obviously I've still got all my old contacts, so Hibs are feeding off my information as well as my reports. It's nice to be back in football in some capacity".

" Orient fans won't like it much, but as a youngster from Custom House, I was a West Ham supporter.

In my early teens I was training with both them and Arsenal as at that time youngsters weren't associated with a particular club like they are now. I was also playing for an East London Sunday side called River Hawks, and we went on a football tour to Bognor Regis. The best player at the tournament got awarded a week's trial with Exeter City, and I was lucky enough to be chosen. I didn't really fancy Exeter, but my Dad said 'Just go down there for the week's trial - what have you got to lose?

I played three games while I was down there, and by the end of the week I had been taken in to the see the manager, Brian Godfrey. They made a massive fuss of me and made me feel like a big fish in a small pond, rather than the small fish I was at the big London clubs. In hindsight I know they did it because I was a long way from home, but it made me feel special. I signed schoolboy terms, and was then offered a three year contract - a two-year apprenticeship and one year's guaranteed professional terms. I thought I'd made the wrong choice as I suffered from terrible homesickness - I might as well have been in a foreign country with my cockney accent, and the couldn't understand a word I was saying! It all worked out well in the end, of course - I met my wife down there when I was 16, and it was the start of a good career".

" After spending a long time in the West Country, at Exeter and Swindon, it was like coming back home - even though I moved to Hertfordshire not East London!

There were six or seven clubs interested, but it came down to Orient in League Two and Bradford in the Championship. Now, I've never been past Watford to play my football apart from a short loan at Mansfield - so I always preferred Orient as an option. Fair play to Barry Hearn, because whenever the financial question came up, he always came up with the financial answers. We had three meetings; the first with Patsy Holland, and the second and third with Barry as well. I never used an agent, as I figured I was 30 and old enough to look after myself, and from that first day I knew I made an impression on Barry. Being a so-called business supremo, he respected my decision and we always had a mutual respect for each other afterwards which carried on into my career as a manager.

When I joined I was coming to the end of my career, and I said to my wife that I wasn't going to stay in football. I thought that she had followed me around during my career, so it was time I did something for her - we had a business idea and were going to move back to Devon, but as soon as I started doing the coaching badges, I knew it was what I wanted to do. Everyone on the courses said I was a natural. I hadn't really had any intentions of going into management before, but it just felt right. When Barry offered me the job on a caretaker basis I grabbed the opportunity with both hands, because you never know when you're going to get the chance to manage in the football league again.

As for the playing side, I think if you spoke to Patsy Holland now, Patsy would admit he made mistakes. He signed six senior players, and three were massive mistakes, Alvin Martín wasn't up to it, Dave Martin's legs had long gone, and Les Sealey, God rest his soul, just didn't want to be there at all. Justin Channing did ok, and Dominic Naylor and myself did well for him, but it never happened for Patsy. I had a decent spell at Orient, especially the season when we got to Wembley and had a really good side, but the best times of my playing career were definitely at Swindon".

" Playing for Swindon between 1991 and 1996 was my best footballing experience as a player.

I joined them from Southend towards the end of the 1990/1991 season, and Hoddle joined the club in the summer afterwards. In my five years there we came in 8th, promoted to the Premiership via the playoffs, relegated in consecutive seasons and then back up as Champions - a real rollercoaster.

Glenn is the best player I've ever played with, without a doubt. Hoddle was sweeping while I played wide right and wide left because I was slight. Once he called me into bis office and said 'You're defending too much - you're our springboard to attack and I want you to stay forward every other time you think about running back'. Throughout my career, including at Orient, people have said I didn't defend enough, but this was music to my ears. Hoddle had an ideal about how football should be played - it was 'his way' against what see saw as the anti-football of the likes of Cambridge under John Beck and it was a pleasure to play in. I've been on coaching courses since where some of those Swindon performances were used on video as examples of how football should be played, and it's how I always wanted Orient to play.

For me personally, Hoddle was a brilliant manager, and the best player I've ever seen, but when it came to his man management skills I can see the problems other people had with him. He used to get frustrated when he demonstrated something in training that even the senior players couldn't do. But for me he took the philosophy 'what you've got, we're going to use' and I appreciated that.

Did the Hoddle era have an influence on me? I tell you what really got to me were that people said 'You can't pass your way out of League Two'. That's the biggest load of crap ever. It's been proven over the last few years that the sides getting promoted have played their way out, including us. I think you can pass your way out of every league. If someone says you can't, then you doubly want to prove them wrong".

" Some people liked to throw a grenade into the mix and say that I wasn't tactically aware.

I took Glenn Hoddle's approach into my management career: cater to each individual's talents, and concentrate on giving the other team problems from what I possessed in my unit. What people do to players in lower leagues is tell you what they can't do well. The fact is they're down in these divisions because they can't do it on such a regular basis, not because they can't do what the top players can do. For example, tell me what Jabo Ibehre can't do as a footballer? You just have remind players what they need to do better - tell anyone enough times what they can't do then they start to believe it - and concentrate on their strengths.

With that in mind, I would worry about putting my team out to beat the other team, whereas a lot of managers would rather try to stop the opposition than create problems. I think I only played 4-3-3/4-5-1 twice or maybe three times, because I thought 4-4-2 suited the players I had at my disposal. In hindsight, I think varying my tactics is something I will do the more I develop as a manager.

However, people will still say that I wasn't tactically aware, but my be all and end all was that if the players know what we're doing within that 4-4-2 system, and we do it to the best of our ability, then it will take us further. It worked in League Two; in League One I quickly learnt that I needed to adapt a little bit. People wouldn't have said I wasn't tactically aware during the second half of the first season, and the first half of the next season!".

" There's a big difference between being a coach out on the training pitch, and having the man management skills to be a successful manager - Paul Brush is a fantastic coach, but struggled with the man-management. I felt I was good at it.

What I said to players is this: I will give you ownership of your own performance but if you cross me, you are gone'. The first one that tried to cross me was Lee Thorpe, and within weeks he was gone. I told the lads what Barry told me: I'd got this job on a minute-to-minute basis; but I said to them 'For the moment 'Lingy' is dead and gone: 'The Gaffer' has arrived. In a week or two Lingy might be back, but all the time I'm in charge of this football club, I will be The Gaffer'. There were senior pros like Locky who I had played with, so I had to get my authority over quickly, and Lee was the first one in the dressing room to come back at me.

It was away from home and he hadn't been playing very well, so it was the perfect opportunity. He had a pop at half time, and I said 'If that's your opinion, then take your kit off, get in the showers and you aren't ever playing for me again'. You could see everyone else go 'Ooh' and sit up a bit straighter. I've met Lee Thorpe since then and he said 'You're the only person that ever worked me out that quickly' - he was pushing me and tests managers, and I hadn't stood for it. That was how I earned the respect of the dressing room so quickly - 'Hit a big'un; is my advice - the smaller ones panic.

If anyone mucked me about, they were gone very quickly, and there were a number of cases where it had to be done. If players are given enough freedom to express themselves without being given enough rope to hang themselves, there's a fine dividing line before they take advantage of the freedom strangle you. If you play for me you will be given trust from me, but if you go past the line, you'll be gone".

" That day in 2006 was the best day of my career - I've played in a Championship playoff final at Wembley where I was Man of the Match and I've played in the Premiership, but I said it straight away after the game, and I've said it since: Oxford beat all that.

When you start out in management there's a sort of 'fuzz' in your head, trying to get the job into perspective. The season before was an improvement, but by my second full season I was a calmer, better manager and knew what I was doing. With Easton, Garner, and others there weren't many poor signings and I knew we had a good chance of going up.

I still watch the video of that game now. It was the pinnacle, because every decision that season I made along with my staff all came together in that one moment. When Jabo missed that chance with a minute to go I just thought to myself: 'That's it. I'm never going to be able to pick these players up to win the playoffs: I think when you come so close to something you can feel it and all you need to do is grab it ... we were out on our feet and you don't get a second chance at these things. We wouldn't have gone up.

With Oxford, Fulham, Charlton.... it was the perfect year for a manager of a football club and it all came down to that last 15 seconds. My whole family was sitting over in the crowd, and when I saw the crowd go up I knew something had happened, but the players didn't know what was going on. I'm shouting at the players to run back and defend and there's Locky and five of them charging forward! They say 'everyone get their 15 minutes of fame' but those 15 seconds are the weirdest feeling I've ever had. I'm sitting here talking about it now, and I'm still getting the hairs standing up on the back of my neck".

" Gabriel Zakuani is the best pure, all-out defender I've ever worked with at any level - but he was never worth a million pounds.

Fulham had him watched at our last six home games of the promotion season, and I assume our away games as well. During the summer, the chairman came to me and said 'We don't want to sell him, do we?' He'd just had his first bit of success after thirteen years as chairman, and was keen to do well, but he asked me what price we couldn't turn down for Gabby. Obviously I didn't want to lose him, so I just thought of a ridiculous figure - I told Barry a million quid as I didn't think there was anyone in the country that would pay it at that time.

About three weeks before the start of the season, Barry called me and said that Fulham had offered €600,000. I asked him if he was going to back me and stick by my valuation. He agreed, but said: 'If we get the one million, we'll take it' -I thought that would be the end of it. Two weeks later they went up to €750,000, and Barry said 'I think they might actually go to a million', and, after we rejected two more offers, Barry called me two days before the season started and said: 'You've lost your centre half - they've offered a million plus add-ons'.

We couldn't turn it down - he'd not played enough games to be worth that much. Gabby will head it, volley it, kick the striker and then pick him up with a smile afterwards all day long to stop the opposition scoring, but he hasn't got that quality in his feet when he's got time on the ball. They've sold him to Posh for a six figure fee, and they think he's brilliant. Where can Gabby play? League Two yes, League One yes, The Championship I think yes, but the very top level? I don't think he'll quite make it there".

" If Jabo Ibehre had Gabriel Zakuani's mentality, Jabo would be a million pound player.

When I was youth team manager at Orient, I had Jabo and Aaron McLean in the same side - they only lost one game in 14 months, and won the Youth Alliance Cup. As a strike partnership they were frightening every youth team in the country. Aaron McLean was very, very, very unlucky to be released after his two broken legs, and, as we know, has gone on to do extremely well. Jabo should be doing what Aaron is at least. But he's an enigma - I was always going round in circles with him.

My first game in charge, up at Carlisle on a Tuesday night was my third favourite game as a manager (after Oxford and Fulham), because that young !ad that I'd coached since he was a baby scored the winner - it was like it was written in the stars. He never scored a f'"**ing goal for me after that, though!

I had Jabo for 9 years all told from Youth Team through to manager, and think he got a little sick of hearing my voice for so long - and vice versa! He was uncoachable - you couldn't teach him to run into certain areas or play a certain way. You just have to leave Jabo to do what he's good at and he'll hurt teams, which is why he was such a good sub. When he's at his best he's unplayable, but when he's at his worst I'd rather have you up front [He's obviously never seen the Orientear play - MA].

When he left, Jabo wanted to go; he knew he'd had his time here. At Walsall earlier in the season they were raving abut him when we went up there, but I told them what would happen and look at it now: he's been sub the last five garues. When he left here, he'd made as many appearances from the bench as he had starts, which says it all. That said, think about this equation: Jabo Ibehre or Ryan Jarvis? Would I have been better to keep Jabo after what we've seen from Ryan? I think we'd all take Jabo in hindsight".

" I think you've got to say that this year was my worst as a manager for signings.

As a manager, you're judged by your results and your signings, and some of those signings didn't do what was written on the tin. In the marketplace we were dealing with, and with the limited money we had, we always had to take gambles. Had Danny Granville's legs gone? Would Ryan Jarvis score goals? Was Sam Parkin the same player after his ankle injury?

Danny Granville didn't do anywhere near what I wanted him to do, so I wasn't proven to be right on that one. Danny's legs are probably gone (everyone's do - mine went at 34), though he'd turn round and say that our most positive results have been with him in the side. For Jarvis it hasn't come to fruition yet. When he was here first time round he had his most productive period and I thought there was a good player in there that would score goals, which has not proven to be right either.

'A lot of the budget went on the two boys from Luton. I saw Sam play for Luton against Exeter at the weekend, and it looks like we got him fit. But he never scored a goal for me, so Sam was proven to be a wrong decision. Dean Morgan didn't work either, but I see he's given a quick spurt and got a contract to the end of the season. Morgan got unbelievable talent, but bad application and he gives off terrible body language. Every time he makes a mistake his head hits the floor, or he starts waving his arms about and looks like he's blaming everybody else. I used to show him videos of his performances and how he acted, but it obviously didn't make a difference.

On the other hand I think that the young keeper, Jones, will prove to be a good signing and Cave-Brown has got the potential to be an exciting player. Charlie Daniels will prove to be a good signing, as long as he plays left midfield. He reminds me of Locky in the sense that his attributes are all going forward - I mean he's six foot two and he's never played left-sided centre half; both Tottenham and myself have question marks over his defensive qualities. He could also make it in the centre of midfield, believe it or not. Having said that Charlie is the best left back in the squad, unless you play Purch out there.

When you look at it, four from seven [I managed to forget about mentioning Luke Ashworth... quelle surprise - MA] have proven to be bad signings, though that wasn't down to lack of effort from three of them. The other three 'surprise packages' will prove to be good signings and I definitely think Orient are going to make money out of the keeper. I think you've got to say that those two Luton signings will be on my gravestone as an Orient manager".

" Before the January transfer window last season, I told Barry Hearn we needed three senior players if we wanted to kick on. I didn't get any of them.

We always sat down in the month before a transfer window, to discuss budgets and targets. When I first started managing, Barry would do the majority of negotiations, but by the end I 11 was doing 95% of the work and Barry just needed to give me approximate budgets. I told him the three players would cost us around £250,000, but he didn't want to gamble. I think if it'd have been the Barry Hearn of ten years ago he would have, but I think he was a bit shocked at how low the attendances were. We were top, playing well and the gates just stayed the same. I wanted three players, but ended up with nobody.

When I was looking to sign a player for a position, I'd sit down with Deano and draw up a list of ten names. We'd usually be shopping from fourth to eighth, as the top three would be on everyone else's list too. Robert Snodgrass was actually top of my list for left wingers, but he quickly became too expensive. We had been told he was available on a free transfer, but that turned out to be not true - Livingstone required compensation and shortly afterwards Leeds came into the equation. There are always certain players that you miss out on because you can't match what others offer. Leeds or Leyton Orient? It wasn't much of a choice for the boy.

I was very interested in re-signing Gary Hooper as well. It became obvious that Southend didn't want to do business with us - we were quoted over a quarter of a million pounds for him, whereas Scunthorpe signed him for f.175,000. I always saw him as more of a wide player than a striker, but I think I might have changed my mind! There is massive talent there, but we were getting quoted silly money, and never had a quarter of a million to spend.

Not many people know this, but I always have an interview with every player before I finally sign them, to get inside their psyche and see what they could offer us how they were going to help us. There have been three players where the interview has happened, I've sat down and talked to them, then walked out the interview and said that I don't want to sign them. On two of them I've been proved right, and on one of them I've been proved right on the personality of the player, but the ability of the player shone through afterwards. Shortly after I pulled out of the transfer, he got done for driving offences, and ended up in jail. My gut reaction was that he wasn't right for me, so I signed Paul Connor instead to take us up instead, which he did do. Paul was only really of a good League Two standard, though - I think if we had wanted someone to take us further, then Tresor Kandol was better, but at the time I felt it was the right decision. Kandol has scored everywhere since, so you've got to say that it's one for me that slipped the net".

"Would I p*** on him if he was on fire? In a word: No!"

" Tam, Demetriou and Chambers. If I became a Championship manager tomorrow that's who I'd look to bring to that football club.

Those three should definitely all be playing at a higher level. I think we all know how good Tam is, and JD could be a top notch central midfielder with time. I see a lot of me in him - he's playing wide at the moment because he's slight, and I preferred playing on the left too so I could cut inside and get involved in play. He's more adaptable than me, though. Adam Chambers is 29 and he might have missed the boat a bit, but if a Championship manager called me and asked me if he could play up there, my answer would have to be: 'Yes'.

As for the youngsters, you've got to look at the two I signed at the start of the season, plus Harry Baker and Solomon Shields. Harry has everything; Solomon has a lot, but Baker has everything - he is a total wide player and he could be absolutely scintillating. The jury is out on all of them be cause they haven't got the figures to their names yet, but I'm convinced that they'll make Orient money".

" What do I think of Sean Thornton? The word 'enigma' comes up again. "In the first season he was outstanding for the first six months and then went off the rails - we didn't see him from Christmas onwards. In truth I got fed up with him wasting his talent. It's undoubtedly there, but it's wasted by him not running his football life properly. It's like having a car and not putting the right petrol in it. When he did, he was class, and when he didn't he was a nightmare.

I was delighted when he went ginger. I was delighted because it meant he was finding himsel{ and because when things are going smoothly he's brilliant. It's the same with JJ Melligan, who's got talent too. When Sean carne back from Shrewsbury, I said to Deano that he'd be our saviour the way he started, but then it just petered out again.

Sean Thornton needs to take a good look at himself in the mirror. Sean has got more talent than most of the players in that dressing room - just look at the Brighton goal and the one he scored for Shrewsbury - so there will always be people ready to give Sean Thornton another chance, but you don't go from Sunderland to Donny to Orient with the amount of talent he's got without doing something wrong. If he wants to waste it that's up to Sean, but over the remaining games he can be Orient's saviour if he wants to be".

" It seems like an awful lot of clubs, our own club included... our own club? I'm talking as if it's my club...

An awful lot of sides, your club included, have gone with the option of getting a manager until the end of the season - Crewe, Brighton and Yeovil, who have taken a different route with a high-risk policy of a rookie player manager and an assistant manager who's a player as well. It's a massive gamble, especially as Russell had some good results before he left. It's all down to the credit crunch; football clubs don't have a lot of money and managers are signing contracts on less money that they'd expect, but with the proviso that keeping a club up will earn a contract on x amount of money in the future.

What I know about Geraint Williams? To be honest what I know about him you could write on a pinhead - all I know is that he was out all the time at midweek games, reserve games youth games - he certainly does his homework. Kevin Nugent will do a good job as an assistant. He's had two goes at caretaker management, and I don't know whether he wants to go into management permanently.

If you look at the League now, I think that there's one team down (Cheltenham) and then three from another 10 sides. I think 50 points will get you safe, and most sides in the bottom half are still in danger. Orient have got to fight to remain in League One - I put them as a 50-50 shot, but then again they were a 50-50 shot when I left.

I always thought that there were four worse clubs than Orient and I still do, but proving it is more difficult. I believe they're better than Hereford, Cheltenham, Crewe, Yeovil and Northampton. Brighton have tried to buy their way out of trouble but that hasn't really worked yet. Next year, League One is going to have some massive games: Charlton, one or both of Southampton and Norwich, Brentford, Wycombe, Millwall . . . It's looking like League Two North and League One South, so it's vital for Orient to stay in the division".

" Orient's long term future? I don't think Barry would sell Orient down the river.

He wants out, that's for sure. While I was there he spoke to a number of people, but I don't think he thought any of them had Leyton Orient's best interest at heart. My personal opinion is that Orient had a bit of a lucky escape from having Terry Byrne as chairman. As for the ground sale, from what I understand the club will actually be easier to sell without the ground, but whether the sale actually helps Orient in any way, I'm not sure. As far as I'm concerned the Olympic Stadium is a no-go. No-one wants to watch football from behind a running track, and I think Orient would end up like Darlington, with a few thousand fans rattling around in a massive stadium.

I've still got plenty of friends on the staff there, although I'm disappointed for Dean Smith. He essentially lost his job because he's a close friend of mine, which I didn't think was fair at all, and I know he's gutted about it. My boy is still there, though. He plays for the Centre of Excellence, and even though I've taken him to see West Ham twice since I left Orient, he still sees Orient as his club! I'm sure one day he'll want to go back and watch the first team.

People might think I want Leyton Orient to go down, but that's simply not the case. There's no mileage in it for me - I'll get tarred with the brush because I took them for 25 games and I'd be half the problem. Anyway, you don't change overnight. I spent 12 years of my career at Orient, and they're important to me personally as well as professionally.

For me, the most pleasing thing since I stopped is that I've had twelve letters from Orient fans. Steve Perryman once said to me: 'When you get your good letters put them in a pile, and 14 when you get your bad letters put them in a pile. When things are going badly read the good ones, and when they're going well read the bad ones: It keeps your feet on the ground. When you're the manager of a club you get hundreds of letters, and you don't get time to read thern all personally. But I've replied to those 12 letters, because those people took the time to write to me and tell me they thought I did a good job and I appreciated that.

Without being big-headed, I agree with them - I think the job was done in a positive manner overall. I don't think you can argue that I left the club in a better position than when I joined.

It was interesting to note how often throughout the interview Martín Ling says 'us' and 'we' - I certainly couldn't detect any real bitterness towards either the club or Hearn; more a tangible sense of disappointment that he had left the club in a precarious position and not been given the opportunity to rectify it. There's no doubt that mistakes were made towards the latter end of his tenure, and I think that with hindsight, Martin believes he should have taken one of the other opportunities which he hints at having been available during the summer. Personally I believe he had taken the club as far as it can go, and for that we should be grateful, but I think the change carne at the right time for both Lingy and Orient. It was obvious to me that Martin still retains a great deal of affection for the O's, and, after giving such a frank and honest appraisal of his time at the club (as well as a certain couple of grand days out) I'd like to think that most Orient fans would reciprocate.

I have no doubt whatsoever that he will return to League management in the near future, and hope he finds a job he really wants. I'm sure we'll see him in the away dugout at Brisbane Road one of these days, and I for one will give him an excellent reception.

Mat Arnot, writing in February 2009