Leyton Orient
City: London
Stadium: Matchroom Stadium
Founded: 1881
Nickname: The O's, Orient
Leyton Orient Football Club. /ˌleɪtən ˈɔəriənt/ are a professional football club in Leyton, in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, England. They play in Football League Two, the fourth tier in the English football league system, and are known to their fans as the O's.
Leyton Orient have spent one season in the top flight of English football, in 1962–63. In 1978, Orient reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the only time in their history, under the management of Jimmy Bloomfield, but were beaten 3–0 by Arsenal. Between October 1993 and September 1995, Orient did not win a single away game in the league, leaving them bottom of Division Two in 1994–95. They reached the Johnstone's Paint Southern Area Final in 2012–13, but were beaten 3–2 on aggregate by Southend United, missing out on a chance to go to Wembley.
Leyton Orient's home ground Brisbane Road is officially known as the Matchroom Stadium after former club chairman Barry Hearn's sports promotion company. Hearn became chairman in 1995 after the club was put on sale for £5 by then-chairman Tony Wood whose coffee-growing business in Rwanda had been destroyed in the country's civil war. The period of the club's near-closure was covered by the television documentary Orient: Club for a Fiver (made by Open Media for Channel 4). In June 2014, Hearn sold the club to Italian businessman Francesco Becchetti.
Russell Slade was appointed manager of the club in 2010 and has been successful in maintaining the club's League One status. Leyton Orient finished 7th, one place away from the playoff positions, in both the 2010/2011 and 2012/2013 seasons. He resigned on 24 September 2014.
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