Leyton Orient 4 Colchester United 2

Sometime in the early 90's, I was an 11-year-old mascot for Leyton Orient in an FA Cup replay against Colchester United (I got photos taken with John Sitton, the then captain, and "Ooh" Terry Howard, terrace favourite, and also, incongruously, the autograph of Frank Carson, the comedian, who was a director of Colchester at the time).

Orient won 4-1, I recall, and today they also got four against the same opponents, although they didn't ask me to be mascot this time. It's understandable, I'm probably too old now.

After the 5-0 mauling Brighton dished out to us at the weekend, we needed to bounce back, and I thought Orient gave arguably their best home performance of the season. Coxy found acres of space on the left wing, Chorley was dominant in central defence and showed some clever distribution, and Jones made some good saves, although it could be argued that the two Colchester goals were softly conceded.

Highlight of the match was undoubtedly Paul-Jose Mpoku's 30-yard screamer near the end of the second half - well, it looked like 30 yards from the other end of the ground, anyway. In all honesty, we deserved the win - Colchester played OK and took their chances well, but Orient played the ball around well and created too much pressure and too many openings for the Essex Boys to handle.

Norwich up next for us in the FA Cup on Saturday, and I'm not expecting us to repeat the Colchester score in that match. Hope springs eternal, though.



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