Finally, the Greater London Women's Football League (GLWFL) has published lists of the teams who will be competing in the five divisions which make up the league in 2025/26.
There is one Premier division, which is designated as a Tier 7 competition.
There are two Tier 8 divisions, "Division One North" and "Division One South". Both feed into the Premier division.
There are also two lower divisions, let's call them Tier 9, which feed into the two Tier 8 divisions.
Leyton Orient will compete in the Premier division against nine other teams (see below). There are four teams in the Premier this season who were not there last season, all four were promoted, two from each of the Tier 8 "Division Ones".
The true cost of our moderate season last year is that we failed to finish in the top two positions, both of those who did (Camden Town and Hammersmith) have been promoted to the next level higher (Tier 6). Normally only one team is promoted but as clubs come and go further up the pyramid, there are occasional extra opportunities. Our fourth place finish last season wasn't good enough to take advantage of it.

Now we know who we will be playing in the up-coming season, here is a brief view of what the opposition has to offer and our predictions as to the risks they pose to Orient's promotion ambitions.

South London Firsts
South London enjoyed a strong first season in the Premier league having won promotion from Division One (South). They soon established themselves with a dominant 4:0 win at home over the Os which demonstrated their bona fides as championship contenders and made it clear the Os were not going to win anything of note unless serious changes were made. We did get a measure of revenge with a 3:2 home win in January but, by that time, the damage was too great for us to overcome. South London also lost some form later in the season and finished 3rd, one point above us, but eight points behind 2nd placed Hammersmith. We regard South London as a major opponent in the chase for promotion and sharing the points would not be a disaster for either side.

Islington Borough Ladies FC
IBLFC will playing their sixth straight season in the GLWFL premier division, they finished a "so close" 2nd in 2021/22 and have been strong contenders in every other year. Honours are even between the Os and Islington although we have finished above them in the two seasons we've been in the same league.
'Boro' have finished in the bottom half of the league these past two seasons and do not look to be the fearsome side they once were in earlier years. They are a 'public' club in that they are administered by a local authority, perhaps the last club to be operated in this way. We understand all has not been plain sailing during their closed season so our prediction is that life is likely to be more difficult for the North Londoners. The Premier league appears not to have any whipping boys this season (like winless Candi and 2-wins Brentford B last season) so we can't see where Islington will be getting points. We'd be looking for maximum points in our meetings in 2025/26 but predict they will struggle to avoid the drop.

AFC Leyton
When we played the full season undefeated in 2022/23 in Division One (North), AFC Leyton were in the same division and certainly lived up to their reputation of providing tough opposition and the matches had the added spice of being our local derbies. Os won both league games but had to battle for everything. Now Leyton played the whole of last season with only one defeat and so join us in the Premier league as division one champions.
AFC Leyton are a ladies only club with a massive programme and with many teams of all ages. They won't be satisfied just making up the numbers so we can look forward to some tough battles to come. We rate them as equal to South London as definite championship contenders and would be satisfied by sharing the points. Maybe not 'satisfied' but they will be tough and local bragging rights are up for grabs.

Luton Town Development
The Hatters ladies first team have been doing well further up the FAWNL structure and have renamed their 'reserve' side as 'development'. This isn't PC, it reflects the nature of the team in that they are not a side filled with fringe Luton players but are the cream of the crop in Bedfordshire's youth development programmes. They may be young but we reckon they are going to be another strong contender this coming season. They beat us 2:1 in our own back yard in mid April which meant we lost the race for 3rd place. Luton's youngsters are going to make things difficult for all the title contenders so we predict a strong middle table finish for them.

Tooting Bec
A tight knit group of ladies who can be as fearsome as they can be unpredictable. After a needle filled 2:2 draw in South London last year in which Orient's last minute 'winner' was chalked off by the ref a very long time after having given the goal, feelings were running high. If ever two teams demonstrated the determination and will to win in modern women's league football, these two epitomise it. In terms of being unpredictable, Bec came to Brisbane Road to play the return match in late March and were soundly thumped 9:1. Nobody saw that coming and it almost certainly won't happen again. Bec will be difficult to overcome for anyone, particularly at their South London home. We predict they'll finish mid table.

London Academicals
"Accies" lost their premier league status in 2023/24 after winning only three games and drawing one. It was something of a surprise, to us at least, when they finished runners up in last season's Division One (North), some 11 points clear of United Dragon in 3rd place. The Accies lost only three games all season. With a home ground in Walthamstow, they are a second local derby side so we look forward to rejoining battle with them in the coming months. If we had to pick a second team to be scrapping to avoid relegation, it would be the Accies, only because the Premier league has moved on so much over the last twelve months, they will have needed to have a major recruitment drive to be able to compete. Our prediction is for them to have to fight hard to retain their hard-won Premier league status.

Comets
Comets have a style all their own. There's no sign of a boss/leader, no over-arching administrator or organiser, they seem to do everything themselves through a loose-knit committee made up of friends. It clearly works! In their four years in the premier division, they've finished 4th, 2nd, 2nd and 5th. A brighter and more cheerful bunch of people would be hard to find. We're not sure however if the great social scene they enjoy is going to stave off what we see as a significant uplift in quality throughout the Premier division. Ability, organisation and fitness look like being raised to levels not seen before. Maybe not so much fun but the ambitions of women's teams grows ever higher and we forecast that Comets will find it increasingly difficult to return enough good results. The bottom half of the table beckons for the ladies in pale blue we reckon.

AFC Croydon Athletic
Another hot ticket from the south, AFC Croydon dominated last season's Divion One (South) having lost just the once. Their defence let in only nineteen goals for the season, a far superior figure than their nearest competitor achieved. Sadly for us, we got to see just how good they are in a midweek cup game last season where they beat us 2:1. They were young, fit, strong and had good footballing ability. The club at Croydon is moving ahead at some pace and the women's team are developing rapidly within it. Despite being new to the Premier division, we identify Croydon as equal to South London as real title contenders. If we aim to finish top. we're going to have to beat Croydon, and that may be a difficult task to achieve.

Sporting Duet
We have to admit, we know little about SDA. The 'A' stands for Academy, SDA have a well organised youth oriented programme. We assume their side will be similar to Luton Town's development side in that it will be mostly made of young up-coming players. They finished second to AFC Croydon in the Division One (South) last season and were only four points back. That would indicate they are capable of a strong season-long performance which we assume they will bring to the Premier division table. Purely on last season's results, Duet look to be a solid bet to achieve a mid-table finish.

Confusion is never far away in women's football in the Greater London region, an example is the announcement by the club of a pre-season friendly match slated for 6th August to be played away at Atletico London's ground next to Barkingside Central Line tube station. The trouble was... the people at Atletico didn't seem to know anything about it. At the time of writing (it should be just after kick-off), nothing appeared to be happening.
In a similar vein, this Sunday's pre-season encounter against a Spur's youth side is advertised by Leyton Orient as being played at the Douglas Eyre sports centre in Walthamstow, Spurs are saying it will be played in Cheshunt. It's all a bit embarrassing when fans message us to ask what the right answer is ... and we don't know. Is there anyone in the club who wants to be our liaison person?

It's still early days but the FA has now published who will be playing in which division in the Greater London Women's Football League (GLWFL). Within that publication is a list of all the players who are registered with the FA to play for each team. Clearly, there has to be a time lag between a club signing a player and that player's name appearing in the FA's online registry. So far , Leyton Orient have declared the following people as signed up for the 2015/26 season:-
Ruby Abela, Gemma Baker, Kallie Balfour, Poppy Binding, Lola Duroyaiye, Wiki Fronc, Grace Gillard, Georgia Griffin, Lucy Porter, Sammy Rowland and Hayley West. That's eleven in total.
The FA's list shows twelve players - but not these five:- Ruby Abela, Gemma Baker, Kallie Balfour, Poppy Binding or Sammy Rowland but they do show:- Eva Carvalho, Jade Keogh (Yes!!), Esme Lancaster, Ellie Leak and Olivia McGregor.
We don't know Eva or Olivia and perhaps Ruby is destined for the under 18s side? Whatever the situation, we're glad to see Esme, Ellie and Jade on the list.
It'll all come out in the wash :-)

Will be played on Sunday 10th August against Tottenham Hotspur's under 21s side but, as explained a couple of paragraphs ago, we aren't sure where it will be played.
STOP PRESS:
We have now heard from the good people at Cheshunt FC that Leyton Orient women will use Cheshunt's ground as their home base for the 2025/26 season. This is a signficant upgrade from Buckhurst Hill and is less susceptible to the flooding which caused so many matches to be postponed.
The address is: The Stadium, Theobalds Lane, Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, EN8 8RU. Theobalds Grove Overground station is an 8-10 minute walk away (Cheshunt station is much farther away), there is ample parking, stands on all four sides and a cafe-bar. Kick-off times are nearly always 2pm.
We understand that The BetWright stadium at Brisbane Road may also be used for selected matches during the season.