Leyton Orient Women

27 August 2026

• Gizmo's League Cup preview
• This Sunday's fixtures
• Orient Outlook podcast

Leyton Orient vs AFC Welwyn Preview

Cheshunt FC
August 30, 2026

This week the women move into cup action, and this tie makes a nice story. On the one hand, there is Leyton Orient, a proud old club, rooted in the community of the East End. On the other hand, there is AFC Welwyn, the brainchild of a couple of guys and only established in 2023, with the women’s team following in 2025. It’s a classic trope of the old gunslinger up against the new kid in town. Or, to put a different spin on it, Boudicca faces off against K-Pop Demon Hunters. (Of course, anyone who knows the history of Leyton Orient Women will recognise that there is a fair bit of narrativum at work here.)

📷 Fisch

Joking aside, AFC Welwyn are an interesting project. They were founded by Tawhid Juneja aided by James Kilroy as the marketing manager (be careful googling Tawhid as there are two very different characters of the same name). The club is looking to move to a fan ownership model, 51% for the fans, in the future. The longer-term plan is to be playing professional football, for the men, by 2034, which is akin to deciding to torch a large amount of money each year. Having said all this, they introduced a women’s team early on and that team had great success in their first year, winning the division and gaining promotion. The 2025-26 season was not entirely smooth sailing for the women of AFC Welwyn. Although they were undefeated, they only won the league on goal difference, with three teams finishing on equal points. This was down to a string of draws early in the season.

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Stopping AFC Welwyn will involve putting the lid on Rachel Wall, who has twenty goals in nineteen appearances and, as an alternative, Nicole Emmings, with twelve in sixteen. Although Brionne Fowle scored a hat-trick in their only league game so far, a mad 5-4 win over Chelmsford, where neither Hemmings nor Wall featured. Between them, Wall and Emmings scored about half the team’s goals. They had a very settled team and top of the ever presents were Louis and Dani Ransom, whom I’m guessing are sisters.

📷 Roy Warner

Leyton Orient women have had an encouraging start to their campaign, having scored seven and conceded none. The defence is likely to be tested here as, whatever else AFC Welwyn do, they will have a shot. That means Freya Faulkner is likely to be busy and Gracie Hickman and Elissa Stonebrook will have to be alert. Kaylee Shurety is able to offer both security in defence and an attacking threat. Up front Bethany Brogan scored her first two for the club on Sunday, while Amy Yeldham and Libby Keeler have looked in good form. Tiff Balfour is very rapid. Stef Paci will as ever lead from the front, ably assisted by Erin Cheyne and Samantha Read.

📷 Ben James

This is the first of three meetings between the teams this year: the Trinovantes versus the Romans. Orient have a better tactician than the ancient Britons in Jody Buckley. This is likely to be an entertaining game between the two newly promoted sides and give some further indication of just where Orient women are in their team development.
Please note that kick-off time is scheduled for 1:30pm. If you go along to the game (please do) then say hello to our guys. There's Larry (he with his head in his phone whilst carry a loud air horn) and Ben who will be photographing everything!

Sunday's fixtures

There are six matches this Sunday involving the clubs in our league, the Eastern Region WFL Division One (South). This league sits at Tier 6 in the women's hierarchy, we attained this level having been promoted from the Greater London premier League (Tier seven) last season.
Three games are in the ERWFL League Cup competition, a knockout competition open to all three ERWFL divisions, the premier (Tier 5) and both Division One (South) and Division One (North).

The Premier teams do not enter the League Cup in the first round, all the games appear to be between Division One teams, north and south.
All the fixtures:- (LC = League Cup / D1S = Div One - South).

It's very early days yet but there are a couple of interesting matches as we seek to understand who will be the strong runners and who is likely to struggle. Last year's FA Cup tie against Needham Market saw a typical (for then) 13:0 result for the Tier 7 Orient upstarts but that was then, this is now. We won't learn much from Needham's match against recently relegated Enfield Town.

Having taken a 3:0 home win against AFC Sudbury reserves last Sunday, we have a fair idea as to their strengths so their result against Colchester Utd on Sunday will give us an idea as to the threat posed by the Col Utd ladies.
The chatter among our players is that Chelmsford City, last season's runners-up - with only one defeat in their league record, will again be a strong force this season. They take on Southend Utd who had a tough time last year finishing second-bottom, three points above the relegated club. So far this season, Southend have scored a 1:0 home win over Hertford who finished just one position above the seasiders last year and only on goal difference. The outcome of this one will give us a good idea as to who is on the up - and who isn't.

Orient Outlook Podcast

Our thanks to Paul, Steve and friends at the Orient Outlook Podcast for their continued and valued support of the women's team. Their latest review is of last Sunday's encouraging 3:0 home league victory over AFC Sudbury Reserves. If you click the image (below), it will take you directly to their women's update section, that'll save you from hunting back and forth for the latest news if your particular interest is in the fortunes of our ladies team.

If you are an Orient men's team fan, we encourage you to listen to the whole podcast which you can find by clicking Here.