Leyton Orient Women

24 August 2026

• Sudbury home win report
• Match facts reviewed
• Ben's slideshow
• Goals and Jody on video
• A wider view...

Leyton Orient 3:0 AFC Sudbury

Cheshunt FC
August 23, 2026

After an assured 4-0 away win last week against Toby Ladies, Orient returned to action on Sunday against Suffolk’s AFC Sudbury Reserves for their first home fixture of the season at Cheshunt. Like the O’s, Sudbury Reserves are a promoted side who also started their campaign with a soild victory. So, although this being only the second match of the season, something had to give!

Despite three players – Abby Caldon, Elissa Stonebrook and Tiff Balfour – making their regular season debuts for the squad, Jody Buckley’s bench was still short with only three subs being available, due to the absences of Brittany Vàron and Libby Keeler. Still, this was still a better situation than their opponents, who only could muster two available substitutes.

📷 @lofc_women

As with all southern England, Cheshunt FC’s pitch has felt the effects of this summer’s high heat and severe lack of precipitation. Despite the valiant work of the grounds crew, the pitch was hard, undulating and had plenty of bare patches. Unfortunately, the pitch would play a role in the match.

From the kick-off, traffic immediately flowed into The Suds half. After only two or three minutes, Balfour was almost sent clear for a one-on-one dual with the goalkeeper, but she was caught out by a rut in the pitch that sent her tumbling down so Sudbury’s charging keeper was able to grab the ball.

📷 Ben James

From there, play was kept mostly in the midfield with neither team really threatening. Around the quarter hour mark, Balfour was at it again and struck a shot that beat the keeper but not the crossbar. Agonizingly close! Unfortunately for Balfour she again went down on the hard pitch, forcing a stop in play as the speedy debutant was substituted for Lily Aungier.

Undaunted, Orient repositioned themselves and pressured Sudbury, and at 20 minutes, the stalemate was broken. Solid teamwork from a corner resulted in a Bethany Brogan goal, thanks to a perfectly placed pass from Danielle Hindley.
Orient kept up their attack and substitute Aungier netted Orient’s second just before the half-hour mark after receiving the ball from Amy Yeldham (who could have scored the goal herself) and sending it past the sprawling visiting goalie.
Just a few minutes later, Yeldham had an opportunity to make it 3 – 0 but her attempt was about six inches off the mark. Kaylee Shurety then had a chance, but her shot was deflected away by the keeper.

Sudbury managed to mount their own charge with about 10 minutes to go in the half. A well-placed through ball managed to elude the O’s defence, however goalie Freya Faulkner charged it down and covered it. Sudbury were then awarded a free kick to the right of the box but that was cleared to safety. Next, a strong Sudbury shot made its way towards Orient’s net but Faulkner was again there to make the save.
After a brief stoppage in play to treat and then substitute an injured Sudbury player, the referee blew for half-time with Orient a well-deserved 2-0 up.

📷 Ben James

Two changes were made as the O’s to started the second half with Tiff Balfour returning to the action along with debutante Abby Caldon joining her. Off went Erin Cheyne and Amy Yeldham.
Sudbury, encouraged by their strong finish to the opening half, immediately went on the hunt for their opening goal and almost got one 90 seconds in but Faulkner again was there to keep the Suds off the scoresheet. Unfortunately for Sudbury, another one of their players fell victim to the pitch conditions and play was halted as she received some treatment.

At 55 minutes, Aungier had great chance to score but her attempt went wide. Then it was Balfour’s turn, whose speed and power proved very problematic for Sudbury, but for the second time in the match her shot rebounded off the crossbar.
Despite the solid play of Sudbury’s keeper, Orient extended their lead at the 60-minute mark. A corner resulted in a goalmouth scramble with Hindley’s initial shot kept out by a Sudbury defender but Brogan was there for the rebound to net her brace and give the O’s a 3-0 lead.

📷 Ben James

At this point, The Suds were desperate to score a consolation goal and threw everything into their attack. Buckley made a quick substitution by taking off Shurety for Singaporean Sara Merican. A break in Sudbury’s attack saw Danni Hindley in with a chance but her header sailed over Sudbury’s goal.
More substitutions followed with Lily Aungier and Samantha Read coming off with Amy Yeldham and Erin Cheyne returning. The heat and the pitch conditions are making for some tired players. Sudbury also made a substitution or two. Lily Aungier was rested for only a few minutes as she came back on for Danni Hindley. Ellissa Stonebrook took a heavy tumble and had to be replaced by Kaylee Shurety.

For the final 10 minutes, both sides had their chances but the score remained 3-0 as the referee blew for full time. Deservedly, all the Orient and Sudbury players were loudly applauded by the supporters at the final whistle for a very entertaining match.

There were good take-aways from the match. The O’s played their most cohesive match yet and compared with last week’s victory, mistakes and miscues were minimised. Tiff Balfour, who was unlucky not to score today, will bag plenty of goals this season. She’s a strong and quick player with a powerful shot.

Overall, you can’t ask for much more. Two wins and two clean sheets against two strong opponents to start the season. Orient now sit alone atop the Eastern Region Women's Football League’s Division One South.

✍Ben James

Goals and Jody's interview on video

Our thanks to @lofc_women on 'X' from where we took some video clips to make this one. It contains clips of all three Orient goals plus a post-match interview with gaffer Jody Buckley. If you have an 'X' account, you can find their stuff on https://x.com/LOFCWomen.
If you don't, we have reproduced the clips onto YouTube, HERE. No login required to view.

Click the image (above) to view the clip on YouTube.

AFC Sudbury slideshow

Thanks to Ben James for the images for this slideshow.

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Re-live the game - as it happened

We enjoy making our Live-Text shows where we bring you minute-by-minute updates as the games progress. These events are fueled by the shared excitement of not knowing how the game will be resolved, Yesterday's match was no exception. We have Larry Peterson and Ben James (plus friends and the LOFCwomen.com air-horn) at the games, they send in reports every couple of minutes and we post them, live! straight onto our website. There are no adverts, no cookies, no tracking, no sponsors and there's no need to keep refreshing the page to see the latest update - we do all that. We'll be doing it again next Sunday....

So enjoy the moments - again - by clicking the graphic below:

A wider view...

When we get the time, we try to have a look around at the teams in our league and any other related news of interest. So here goes...

Eastern Region WFL Division 1 (South)
Our game was the only league match played this weekend so we're top with two wins from two. We and Sudbury have byes into the first qualifying round of this year's women's FA Cup, everyone else had cup-ties in the "preliminary" round - just to get into the qualifying rounds, and then just to get into the 1st round proper! FA Cup prelim and qualifying games are regional but inter-league, here are the results in an around our region, teams in our division are marked with *:

Four Eastern Region Div 1 (S) teams made it through to the first qualifying round by beating teams from other leagues, only Southend Utd lost out with a narrow 3:2 home defeat to Frontiers who play at Tier 7.

Milton Keynes Irish walloped Brackley Town by 11:0 and will travel to Cheshunt to face Leyton Orient in the first qualifying round on 6th September.

Our old friends and long-time adversaries at Islington Boro Ladies managed to hang on to their Greater London Premier Division status, they were also in FA Cup action on Sunday and overcame East Thurrock 3:2 on penalties having been level at 1:1 after 90 minutes. Islington lost their entire team (near enough) at the start of last season and had a torrid time of it. Who knew we'd follow in their footsteps just a year later? Islington's home ground is owned by the local council who declared it unplayable due to the drought conditions (whatever that means). Islington had to hire the only private ground they could find and spent exactly half of their entire season's budget in doing it. It brings into focus just how difficult it is run a women's football team independent of a major football club.

After many years of friendly (but ultra competitive!) tussles with South London side Tooting Bec, it's good to see them also promoted to a Tier 6 league after last year's battles. They deserved it. They've played twice so far in the London and SE regional league, a 2:1 win over Clapton Community and a 2:0 loss to Dulwich Hamlet. Bravo ladies, we'll probably meet again one day!