---

---

Leyton Orient kick-off their 2025-6 league campaign with an away trip to Islington Borough, one of the last of the local authority supported teams. They are familiar opponents and have often had the edge on us. They have had a large amount of squad turnover with last year’s joint top scorers Freya Glen and Mia Fadeni having departed, although Andrea Niper remains on the books. Lots of other squad members have left and the word on the street is that they are in some disarray. Their FA Cup campaign ended on 24th August with a 4-0 defeat to London Academicals which appears to have been their last competitive fixture.
Orient come into this match in the unusual position, for Orient, of being one of the favourites for promotion having brought in players who have been playing well above Tier 7. They have cemented that feeling by winning their FA Cup tie against Hitchin Belles, a Tier 6 outfit, 13-0. This is a statement along the lines of, “We are bringing a gun to a knife fight (and probably a semi-automatic)”. If I were Islington Borough’s manager I would be frantically Googling “low block”. The pre-season prediction had Borough down to struggle in this division, so this is a match that we will be looking to win before tougher encounters. After the FA Cup match, I’m not going to predict a score!
After a 13-0 win why would you change the team, aside from fitness issues but if Jason wants to change the team after that start, who are we to quibble? It would be churlish not to pick out Sammy Rowland (five goals) and Grace Gillard (a hat-trick) from last weekend but you can only get such a dominant result if everyone in the team is firing on all cylinders. It will be interesting to see who is on the bench, as we only had three at Hitchin. There are twenty-one players registered for the league so we are capable of putting out a full bench, although a few injuries will stretch the squad. All I can say to fans is strap into your seats, hold onto your hats because this season is going to be a wild ride!
Previous Meetings
Leyton Orient 1 Islington Borough 0 (16 February 2025)
Islington Borough 3 Leyton Orient 1 (3 November 2024)
Islington Borough 2 Leyton Orient 0 (28 January 2024)
Leyton Orient 1 Islington Borough 1 (15 October 2023)
Orient's line up (from):
⚽ Gemma Abela Baker   ⚽ Ruby Abela   ⚽ Kallie Georgie Balfour   ⚽ Poppy Binding   ⚽ Eva Carvalho   ⚽ Emily Dilliway   ⚽ Lola Duroyaiye   ⚽ Wiktoria 'Wiki' Fronc   ⚽ Grace Gillard   ⚽ Georgia Griffin   ⚽ Jade Keogh   ⚽ Wiktoria Kiszkis   ⚽ Esme Lancaster   ⚽ Ellie Thomas Leek   ⚽ Stephanie McCaffrey   ⚽ Olivia McGregor   ⚽ Lucy Porter   ⚽ Poppy Anna Ridley ⚽ Sammy Rowland   ⚽ Emily Scouros   ⚽ Hayley West  

---

Here's the list of this coming Sunday's fixtures in the Greater London Women's Football League (GLWFL) Premier division.

1	AFC Croydon	:	South London
2	Comets	:	Tooting Bec
3	Islington Boro	:	Leyton Orient
4	London Accies	:	Luton Town Dev
5	AFC Leyton	:	Sporting Duet

All ten clubs will be in action on Sunday, only Sporting Duet and Luton played league games last week so the former are currently top and the latter sit at the bottom as a result of Duet's 3:1 home win. This Sunday throws up some interesting clashes in view of our pre-season predictions (see them HERE ) in that match No 1 sees our two top tips meeting each other on the opening day.
Naturally we have only last season's performances to go on but both were strong and both beat us. South London stormed Division 1 (South) in 2023/24 and then finished their first premier division campaign in 3rd spot last year. AFC Croydon dominated the same division One (south) last season and are well placed to follow their fellow south Londoners to a strong showing this year in the premier division. This one will be tight.
Comets will need to overcome the disappointment of losing out in the FA Cup last week having lost a penalty shoot-out 5:4. Tooting Bec, always unpredictable, will be looking to get off to a flying start, a win over Comets will set them up nicely.
Our neighbours London Academicals (they play in Walthamstow) won at Islington Borough in the FA Cup before going out of the competition a week later at the hands of currently undefeated Tier six side Chelmsford City. The outcome of their match against Luton Town Development side will give us a clue about how the season will pan out for both.
Our other neighbours, newly promoted from Div 1 north - AFC Leyton face another newly promoted team, from Div one south, in the form of Sporting Duet. It's impossible to call but it will be a true north versus south London battle.

---

Over time, our "contact us" facility has grown in terms of how many of you take the opportunity to have your say. This is most welcome and you have the guarantee that we read all of them. We often see the same questions being asked and that helps us to focus on the key issues and come up with answers if we can. However, there are a couple of misconceptions we'd like to clear up, so here goes...
We are an independent group of life-long Orient fans, we work unofficially and have very little contact with officials at the club. What we post on our web pages is derived from our own ideas, we have no corporate input from the club, it's just us. This means we are not in a position to pass on your views to staff at Leyton Orient, that's also not why we do this.
Our goal is simple: To publicise the women's team in order to promote an improved awareness among the several thousand people who are already Orient fans. You folks are our target audience, we hope to convince you to follow the women's progress just as we all follow the men's team.
We give everyone the option to contact us in complete anonymity if that's what you prefer. We have nothing in place that could identify you in any way. However, please be aware that if you choose not to tell us your email address on the contact form, and that's fine, but it does mean we cannot respond to your message.
If you go to Women's games (highly recommended), please let us know how you thought the ladies played? What went well? What needs working on? Who did something special? That kind of stuff! We'd love to hear from you.

---

Our thanks to whoever shot this short video (maybe there's more?) of the three goals scored by O's skipper Grace Gillard in last Sunday's FA Cup tie at Hitchin Belles. It is available to view on Instagram HERE but if you don't use Instagram, click the image below to view it on YouTube.

---

We are very grateful to the club for hosting some of our home fixtures at the BetWright Stadium in Brisbane Road again this season. The club has also secured a good 'home' base at Cheshunt FC's ground near Theobald's Grove overground station. We've amended our fixtures list to include where the games are planned to be played. (BR) means we're playing at Brisbane Road, (CH) indicates the game will be played at Cheshunt.
Be aware there may be late changes as circumstances dictate so we'll keep a keen eye on it and let you know as soon as we can if that happens.
It's maybe a good idea to book-mark our fixtures and results page to see all the latest info. Below is an extract from it...

---

If you have an interest in and views about the women's team then please let us hear your thoughts and suggestions. You can contact us (anonymously if you prefer) via our contact form on our home page or just simply email us at lofcwomen@yahoo.com
We look forward to hearing from you.

---