Wetherspoons seemed a fitting location to meet before the match. Over a £1 pint in a dirty glass I perused the League One standings in a copy of the Sun.
It appeared that the result would mean as little to the teams as it would to me. Both Orient and Colchester were stoically mid-table. Their five remaining fixtures were of almost no consequence.
I would be in the away end, so with no affiliation to the club whatsoever I decided that a trip to the bookmakers would be a good idea. £10 on Colchester at 11/4 seemed a decent bet.
Arriving at Brisbane Road it was clear that the stadium is a relic of a bye-gone era. An era in which corrugated-iron and exposed steel girders were staples of stadium design.
We paid £20 for a ticket at the rusty turnstile and made our way to our seats, which were alternately wooden and plastic. The ground was close to its 9000 capacity but the O’s fans were fairly muted, the 1000 traveling away contingent was making all the noise.
The match kicked off and it was end to end. Not in the traditional sense but in so much as the ball went high and long to one end, before being kicked back high and long to the other.
This proceeded for the opening five minutes before a brief session of head tennis around the centre circle settled the teams into a more regular pattern of play.
Both sides lined up with a standard 4-4-2 and in the middle of the park a sub-plot of the less-famous brothers took place as Paul Terry, brother of John, and Kem Izzet, brother of Muzzy, came head-to-head.
It took 15 minutes for anything of note to happen. Colchester’s keeper, Dean Gerken (pronounced gherkin), got himself into a real pickle coming to collect a cross. He crashed into Orient striker Scott McGleish and spilt the ball, only for Simon Church to prod it wide of an open goal.
Yet it was Colchester who had the best of the early exchanges, their only problem being that they were unable to carve out a decent chance. In fact, a particularly angry man sitting three rows behind me was proving the best source of entertainment.
His constant heckling of the Orient players was unimaginative but effective. “Church, you’re rubbish! You’re absolutely rubbish!” he cried, before turning on Sean Thornton after he appealed a throw-in: “Fuck off, you dye-haired cunt!” Thornton, you see, has dyed hair.
As the first half-drew to a close Colchester took the lead. The goal came in a predictable manner as a long free-kick into the box was met by Ashley Vincent, who flicked the ball on to Clive Platt to nod home from six yards.
As the match kicked-off again the fourth official announced that there would be four additional minutes. It proved a bridge too far for Colchester to hold out that long.
A long ball down field from Terry saw McGleish manhandled by Colchester’s Neal Trotman. The resulting 30-yard free-kick was beautifully struck by Charlie Daniels with his left foot and arced into the net.
Half-time and Brisbane Road’s amenities could only be described as poor. One small shack was serving a menu of pre-packaged burgers and hot-dogs, tea, coffee and a range of soft drinks. The marble troughs of the urinals perhaps used to be white, but were so no longer.
Back pitch-side it was announced that the winners of last month’s Leyton Orient wordsearch would be taking part in a penalty shoot-out. A group of children lined up to take penalties against the Orient mascot who cut them little slack by getting down to save their shots.
The second-half kicked with an opening 10 minutes of little note. It was, however, Orient who were now in the ascendancy.
Their pressure eventually began to pay and it took two good saves from Gerken to keep the scores level. Firstly he blocked a point blank header from Sean ‘the dye-haired cunt’ Thornton, and then he palmed away another dangerous free-kick from Daniels.
Colchester boss Paul Lambert saw the danger signs and decided to shake thing up, bringing on winger Mark Yeates for Lewis Goborn.
Clearly not a fans’ favourite, Yeates’ appearance was met by murmerings of discontent from the away support. In particular that vocal man a couple of rows back who hurled a couple of grammatically dubious slurs at the substitute.
The change did little to alter the flow of the game as McGliesh was put clean through but managed to send his shot both high and wide of the target.
Things were now looking ominous for Colchester and my £10. Although their thuggish left-back Paul Tierney thundered a long-range shot against the bar, only moments later McGleish did the same for Orient.
I was clinging onto the hope that one of an endless stream of long balls up to Clive Platt would prove fruitful, but, alas, it was not to be.
From a Colchester corner Jamie Jones in the Orient goal caught the ball and threw it to Church down the left-wing. He brought it forward before knocking it through to Jimmy Smith, on-loan from Chelsea, who took one touch to prod the bouncing ball towards goal before chipping it over the on-rushing Gerken. 2-1 to Orient.
I was disappointed. All in all the match had now cost me £40 and my despondency was mirrored by those around me.
With 10 minutes still left to play the crowd’s attention turned to a plump and unattractive woman sitting in the Orient stand just to our right.
As a round of “Who’s the slapper in the scarf?” resonated she turned and gave us a V-sign, before sitting down to renditions of “Does she take it up the arse?”, and “She’s got Chlamydia”.
A scrappy goalmouth scramble almost resulted in an equlaiser for Colchester, but it was not to be. At the final whistle we ambled our way out of the stadium to be met by a surprisingly large police presence. Stepping off the curb I plunged my foot into a particularly large pellet of horse-shit which I scraped off on said curb before making my way back to Leyton underground station.