Leyton Orient Women

21 September 2026

• Ben's report on Sunday's win
• Orient Outlook Podcast
• Ben's slideshow
• Re-live the game
• Other results round-up

Leyton Orient 2:0 Southend Utd

Cheshunt
Sept 21, 2026

After a disappointing 1-1 draw just up the road at Wormley Rovers last week, Orient returned to their home ground at Cheshunt to face Southend United, who were coming off a 2-1 defeat to Enfield Town.

📷 @LOFC_women

Unlike last Sunday, this Division One South clash against the Shrimpers saw the O’s field a near full-strength starting eleven, along with having five substitutes on the bench – a relief no doubt for head coach Jody Buckley. That said, midfielder Dani Hindley was unavailable as was starting goalie Freya Faulkner, who Buckley decided to rest after picking up a knock in last week’s match. In Faulkner’s absence, newly signed Felicity Tatum donned the gloves.

Under bright sunshine, the match kicked off with the wind to the backs of the visitors. However, it was the hosts who had the first scoring opportunity but the attempt was wide. Notwithstanding the initial attack, the opening phases were played in midfield, with neither side being able to sustain any momentum.

📷 Ben James

Elissa Stonebrook saw a shot hit the side netting whilst a header from Amy Yeldham went over the crossbar. Southend’s first chance came just after 20 minutes, but it went well wide of Tatum’s goal. Thirty minutes in, play was stopped after the Shrimpers’ captain went down after heading a ball. She got back up and resumed playing but was substituted shortly after going down again. Thankfully, she did return later.

Despite the first half being physical, both sides kept it clean. Captain Stef Paci and Lily Aungier made life difficult for any Shrimper who dared to thrust down the middle of the pitch and Kaylee Shurety, Erin Cheyne and Gracie Hickman cancelled forays along the sides. As the half reached its conclusion, Orient emerged as the more dominant side; however, they were unable to breach Southend’s goal before the teams headed back to the changing rooms with the match in a goalless deadlock.

The second half started the way the first half ended, with the O’s on the ascent. Erin Cheyne and Elissa Stonebrook both had decent early chances but failed to capitalise; nevertheless, Southend were unable to contain the pressure. At 55 minutes, Orient won a corner. Erin Cheyne whipped it into the box where, after a very brief scramble, Beth Brogan gained possession and passed it to an open Samantha Read who made no mistake by thumping the ball into the net to break the deadlock.

📷 Ben James

With the Shrimpers firmly on the backfoot, Buckley began his substitutions. Aleena Anwar, last week’s lone goalscorer, came on for Erin Cheyne and, a few minutes later, striker Tiff Balfour and midfielder Shannon Wason replaced Amy Yeldham and Edie Miller.

All three subs quickly made their presence known. Balfour’s speed outmatched the Southend defenders as she kept a ball from going out of play and then passed it to Stonebrook who was thwarted from taking a shot by another defender. Aleena Anwar’s control of the ball, especially cutting across the centre, troubled Southend who resorted to bringing her down. A few minutes later, Anwar herself got into some hot water when she fouled a Shrimper after losing possession and was shown a yellow card for her tackle.

Two minutes later, Tiffany Balfour intercepted an errant Southend pass and struck it on target from about 25 yards out. For the fifth or sixth time this season, it hit the woodwork. Moments later, it’s Balfour again. This time the goalie spilled her shot and O's star striker, fighting off a defender, stepped over the keeper and tapped the ball into the net. The celebration, however, was short lived. The keeper reached for her head and the defender, who was fouling Balfour, yelled to the referee that Tiff had kicked the goalie. The ref, who was quite some distance away, fell for the Southend pantomime, ruled the goal off and had words with the innocent striker. Thankfully, no card was given.

📷 Ben James

Orient were almost made to pay soon after as the Shrimpers intercepted a poor pass at the O’s end. Tatum was beaten and the ball was proceeding into the lower left side of the goal, but Shurety, who had sprinted back from around thirty yards, just managed to clear the ball off the line and into safety. An incredible effort and intelligent play by the veteran saved her younger teammates some embarrassment.

Orient’s momentary lapse of concentration was quickly put aside as the home side promptly pushed deep into Southend’s half. Aleena Anwar had a shot from about 30 yards that beat the keeper, but not the bar.

Then good luck finally fell Tiff Balfour’s way. Taking on a swarm of Shrimpers 10 yards out from goal, her shot deflected off a defender and sailed into the opposite side of the net. The jubilation in scoring her maiden regular season goal for the O’s, not only from Balfour, but also from her teammates and coaches was apparent. Everyone was happy that the talented youngster had finally broken her duck.

📷 Ben James

Two- nil up and victory all but assured, Buckley made some final changes. Havin Aygun replaced Gracie Hickman in defence and Libby Keeler came on for Elissa Stonebrook, who'd taken a nasty knock to her arm.
The final whistle blew and so it's back to winning ways and a clean sheet for Orient. Felicity Tatum deputised very well for Freya Faulkner and, whilst being the dominant team overall for most of the match, the second half additions of Anwar and Balfour really turned the tide to favour Orient.

Up next for the O’s is a League Cup match at home against Hertfordshire’s Harpenden Town, who currently sit mid-table one tier above the O’s in the Eastern Region Women's Football League’s Premier Division. It will be a difficult test for the ladies and Buckley will no doubt be thinking about who to start next Sunday at Cheshunt.

Audio experiment

We've been trying out making an audio review of each game, the intention is to provide this to our friends Paul and Steve at the Orient-Outlook-Podcast. This week we had a couple of techie problems (mostly related to advanced age) so it didn't happen. However, if you prefer a 1min:50sec audio review of the win over Southend, you can listen in by clicking the image below....

Southend Utd (H) slideshow

Thanks to Ben James for the images for this slideshow.

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If you have the promotion of the women's team at heart, please feel free to use our images in your noble quest.

Re-live the game - as it happened

Making Live-Text shows can be a bit frantic but it's a lot of fun bringing you minute-by-minute updates as the game progresses. Not knowing the outcome adds some spice to the mix. 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 - every game.

So review Sunday's impressive 2:0 victory over a strongly fancied Southend Utd side, just click the graphic below:

Results round-up

There were seven games involving clubs in our league on Sunday. Three league matches (D1S) and four FA Cup ties (FAC)
Here are the results:

Eastern Region WFL Division 1 (South)

⚽ The battle of the AFCs was clearly won by Sudbury reserves. No surprise there, they are in second spot on ten points with us but have played one game more.
⚽ Hertford Town move up to top the table with four wins from five. Chelmsford city (the only remaining 100% record) played a cup game so they now have two games in hand.
⚽ Southend lost ground on the leading pack after their 2:0 defeat at Orient who move into third.

The current table is shown on the FA's web page for our league: ERWFL Division 1 TABLE

National FA Cup ties
Eastern Region teams (that's us) are shown with *.

⚽  Chelmsford City added to their 100% record this season with a satisfying win over London league side Clapton. The Eastern region have the bragging rights for now.
⚽  Colchester Utd took some comfort from a nice 4:1 over Newmarket and ended their run of three straight league defeats in doing so.
⚽ Unbeaten Enfield have only played two league games but remain strongly tipped for a top-two spot. Nobody was surprised to see Thetford overwhelmed by the north London side.
⚽ Hutton have played just the one game in the league, a 5:0 defeat to Sudbury Reserves, now a 15:0 reverse against Bowers and Pitsea doesn't look good for the immediate future of the Hutton ladies. They gave us a bit of a beating in a bruising pre-season game about three years ago, that looks most unlikely to happen again.

Next up...

Next Sunday, 27th September, we take on a Tier 5 side in the form of Harpenden Town FC. We've already tasted what Tier 5 Brentwood can do in a recent pre-season game but it's safe to say we've come a long way since then. Harpenden play in the same league as us, the Eastern Region Women Football League (ERWFL) and are currently mid table in the Premier division (same as Brentwood), hence one tier higher than Orient.
Check back on Thursday when we look at Harpenden and preview the game, here on LOFCwomen.com