16 July 2026
New keeper
The women's group are delighted to announce the signing of highly regarded goal-keeper, Freya Faulkner.
The talented young goalkeeper joins Orient after progressing through the academies at Ipswich Town and Billericay Town before gaining her first taste of senior football with Maldon & Tiptree last season.
Team manager Jody Buckley said...
“Freya is simply a fantastic young goalkeeper with so much talent that it is frightening. She played for me last season in Maldon & Tiptree’s first team and showed just how confident she is to break into women’s football at such a young age.
I’d say to anyone to watch out for Freya, as I genuinely believe she’ll go on to reach very high heights, and we want that to be with us at Orient.”
Welcome to the O’s, Freya!
As far as we know, Freya is the 4th official signing, she joins Stef Paci, Gracie Hickman and Lily Aungier. More signings are expected very soon. Early photos of the growing team are available at our Photo Gallery.
LOFC 4th quarter business round-up
The following is taken directly from the club's website, it seeks to explain the recent comings and goings in and around the women's team and its organisation.
Women’s Team
The 2025/26 campaign was a fantastic one for the club’s women’s team as they claimed a trio of trophies and won promotion to the sixth tier. Given how dominant the women’s team were in 2025/26, the club did apply to be promoted by more than one level, but this was not granted by the relevant authorities.
In the last few weeks, there has been a change to the ownership structure of the women’s team. The McCaffrey Football Investment Group LLC (MFIG LLC) has returned its stake in the women’s team back to the club, in order for them to make an investment in Tier 4 club Actonians. However, MFIG LLC will still continue a commercial partnership with the women’s team.
New Head Coach Jody Buckley has joined the club and a number of high-calibre players have been recruited. The women’s team remains an important part of Leyton Orient and we hope they can challenge for promotion again this season.
To conclude, we hope that supporters have enjoyed their summer break and are excited for the return of domestic football, following the conclusion of the World Cup. As a board, we feel optimistic about the new campaign – there is still plenty of work to be done behind the scenes – but we hope this excitement is shared by you, our brilliant fans. We look forward to seeing you back in E10 next month.
Trying for some clarity behind this and other information to hand, it seems to us:-
MFIG LLC have moved on to Actonians FC. Their involvement with us at Leyton Orient is now a simple sponsorship programme which is much reduced from last year's support. That's about the the size of it although the status of Jason Stephens seems complicated in that he is shown as the CEO of Leyton Orient Women. Unless you know better, we'll probably move forward with this in mind. The major change in terms of our team appears to be that Jody has a considerably smaller budget with which to build a new team to play in a higher league than last year's players did. No pressure Jody!
Next weeks' friendly,
On Sunday July 19th, we were scheduled to return to the scene of last season's Capital Cup final victory - the home ground of Dorking FC. We were booked to play their 2nd team who operated at "County" level last season - roughly on a par with Tier 7. There is some confusion (to us anyway) about the availability of a pitch and venue, social media notices show contradictory "home" and "away" descriptions. If/when we get confirmation, we'll pass it on to you.