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Luton Town's development side visited the BetWright stadium at Brisbane Road for what was their fourth Greater London Women's Premier League fixture of the season. They arrived as the bottom club having lost their first three. For the Os, this was only our second league match because of our continued success in the Adobe Women's FA Cup competition. Tier seven clubs like ours are not expected to go very far in the FA Cup so, when we do, there is usually a clash with a league game which gets postponed until later in the season. If we beat Needham Market WFC next Sunday, that series of postponed league games will continue - let's hope that'll be the case!
To anyone who doesn't live under a rock, it will be common knowledge that Leyton Orient has recognised a key requirement among many of the best female players who want to enjoy their football and play in a good team but have no intention of turning professional, hence our squad is filled with smart business/career women who could play professionally if they chose to. Luton's development side, mostly made up of up-and-coming youngsters, will probably not have faced such a strong team before. They were 2:0 down within the first two minutes of the match, it was clear that it was going to be a long afternoon for the Young Hatters. The dry statistics showed the goals going in as follows:
Ellie Leek (1 min) Stephanie McCaffrey (2 mins ) Ellie Leek (10 mins) Poppy Binding (25 mins) Samantha Rowland (31 mins) Wiktoria Fronc (33 mins) Wiktoria Fronc (41 mins) Samantha Rowland (45+3 mins) Ellie Leek (46 mins - pen) Samantha Rowland (49 mins) Wiktoria Kiszkis (53 mins) OG (59 mins) Samantha Rowland (61 mins) and Samantha Rowland (90 mins).
The deadly finishing of 'Super' Sammy Rowland, (who notched five goals) and the cultured skills and vision of Ellie Thomas Leek (3 goals) were the stand-out performances although everyone was "on it" from start to finish. It's great to see Wiki Fronc return to action after injury, she bagged herself a brace coming on from the sub's bench. Lucy Porter had to be subbed off early in the match, we hope things are not too bad, our injury list is already long enough.
Quoting our bloke-at-the-match, Larry Peterson, who watches all their games, he recognises one of several key tactics of this Orient side... Dispossessing the opposition. Larry has noticed from all the games so far, the press and aggressive challenge to whoever has the ball has meant that regaining possession has figured highly in their list of priorities. Larry tells us there is a relentless pressure applied by the ladies in red, such that the other side hardly get a chance to build much in the way of attacks of their own. Once the ball has been regained, there is plenty of skill and movement within this side to make it pay. This is a great team, it has everything.
We'd like to thank the people at Luton who agreed to change the kick off time to 4pm and change the day of the match from the usual Sunday - to Saturday. Much appreciated! Without it, we could not have tried the double-header idea.

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Last Saturday provided a rare opportunity, one which was well spotted by the club. A number of elements had to fall into place...
(1) The men's team had a home game, (2) It was an early kick off due to the Sky TV broadcast, (3) The ladies' team also had a home game over the same weekend, (4) The GLWFL, the people at Luton Town and our own players/staff all agreed to change the day and time of the women's match from 2pm on Sunday to 4pm on Saturday. From all those circumstances came the opportunity to play the first double header in living memory and give the chance for large numbers of the 6,000 (ish) home fans to stay on at the stadium to watch (probably) their first ever Orient women's game.
The club got it together with extensions to policing, stewards, first aid, refreshments availability, local authority permissions... probably a host of other considerations (insurance? etc) plus they added a BOGOF offer at the bar to make the idea even more attractive. There was plenty of effort put in during the week before to make sure everyone knew of what was being planned. All of this will have cost a small fortune, we don't know who stumped up the money, we can only Mcguess. So everything was set for a bumper event of football which included a game with the best women's team Leyton Orient had ever had - by miles! It didn't really happen.
For whatever reason/s, by our estimation, just a couple of hundred people stayed to watch the ladies win. The few people we spoke to said the loss to Stevenage just put a downer on everything so they didn't feel like hanging around. That makes sense but it's a shame nonetheless. We scanned around the forums and other social media portals to gather some comments. We don't have permission to quote names so we've just reproduced a few comments here anonymously....
* I enjoyed it. We will be Champions this season!
* We have a good team & will be Champions. Who cares if we win 14 0 each week. Those that were there enjoyed it
* We enjoyed it. Just wanted to see some goals after the men's match and we certainly did. Obviously this team is too good for their league. They played far too well for their opposition.
* I heard 2 old guys chatting at the end of the game, saying the girls played good passing football and understood tactics. They said they'd only come to show support and were glad they had.
* I was truly looking forwards to watching them today, but our men's team peeed me off so much........
* I am going to watch the Women's Rugby final England vs Canada.
* shame it was so one sided and not against a team in the fa cup or from a few leagues higher. Not that much of an advert for Women's football when its such a one sided game.
* you could say, what a statement of intent the team showed today.
* Great idea, buy one get one free, what’s not to like!
* If this afternoon's match was a decent spectacle between two evenly matched teams it would have been a great advert for the women’s team. Instead, anyone who attended the game out of curiosity is very unlikely to return.
* I haven't been in the East stand for years, but if the changing rooms are still there then they could use them (after some renovation works) and then turn the game around in 30 mins which makes it more appealing for more fans to stay behind.
So there you have it! It looks like patience and more work is needed to grow the concept. We'll be on that journey!

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Here's the list of the weekend's GLWFL Premier division results:-

Lge	AFC Leyton	1 : 4	Comets
Lge	Islington	2 : 4	Croydon
Lge	Orient	14 : 0	Luton Tn Dev
Lge	London Accies	2 : 3	Tooting Bec
Lge	Sporting Duet	0 : 2	South London

The two remaining teams still with a 100% win record are ourselves and Tooting Bec. Sporting Duet, having won their first three games were beaten at home by South London, our favourites to challenge for the title this season. Rachael Todd (20m) and Ruth Orbach (70m) scoring to gather the points. Like us, South London are still in the FA Cup so they also have played only two league games. It is noteworthy that South London shipped four goals in their opening match, that's so unlike them, we see they've now retuned to their mean ways and kept a dangerous Duet attack out on Sunday.
Newly promoted AFC Leyton are finding the going tough in the Premier league, they remain point-less and in the relegation zone after losing at home to Comets who are always strong. Also yet to score a point are Luton Town Development who have lost all four of their opening matches.
Islington Borough are putting up a good fight having had to recruit almost an entire first team just a few weeks ago, Croydon Athletic were a little too strong for them on Sunday, running out 4:2 winners and retaining their unbeaten status as they did so.
Tooting Bec kept their 100% record going by overcoming London Academicals with a close 3:2 scoreline at the Dougles Eyre centre in Walthamstow. Bec's prolific goal-getter Bryony Bancroft scored yet another goal for the south Londoners, Rosie Lethbridge came off the bench to score a brace to wrap up the win. It seems that, whenever we play Tooting, there's always a lot at stake on the outcome, things are shaping up to be the case once again when we'll play them in a league match at Brisbane Road on 9th November.

The latest table standings can be seen at the FA's website . It's also always available via the grey option on our MENU page.

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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.

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