Fans of Leyton Orient Women

Update: Mar 30th 2026

• Ben's Brentford report
• News snippets
  including: Live Text review, Abbi Smith dual registration, Outlook podcast, AFC Bournemouth win the cup
• GLWFL League cup round-up

Ben's match report
GLWFL League Cup
Orient 2:0 Brentford 'B'

The second match report from our own Ben James, an avid supporter and regular at Orient women's games.

Whilst the clocks sprung forward overnight on Sunday, a lovely spring day at Cheshunt it was not. A chilly seven or eight degrees, ominous cloudy skies and a stiff breeze greeted Orient and West London’s visiting Brentford Women B for their quarter-final match in the John Greenacre Memorial Trophy (JGMT) - also known as the GLWFL League Cup.

The returns of Esme Lancaster, Abbi Smith and Wiki Fronc gave coach Jason Stephens additional options; however Lucy Porter was absent from the squad. Three changes to the starting 11 were made compared with last week’s match against South London. In addition to Porter and Fronc, Georgia Griffin was given the nod to start.

📷 Denise Clarke Collins

Heading into the match, it was predicted that it would be a tight affair, both teams comfortably lead their respective GLWFL divisions and are racing away to promotion. Expectations were met.

Once again, Orient were the assertive side from the opening whistle, putting the Bees on their back heels. A shout for a foul came just three minutes in when Maddie Biggs was bundled over in the penalty area. The referee was having none of it, setting the tone – it was going to a physical affair.

From the kick-off, Brentford used their size advantage to smother the quicker Orient squad. While little space was being given to the O’s forwards and attacking midfielders, this also meant the Bees were also limited in their options. Instead of playing the ball on the ground, Brentford tried to beat Orient’s defence with long, aerial passes to their striker and one or two attacking wingers. For the most part, this proved futile. Passes were too long, not helped by the wind, and were easily controlled by goalie Lola Durojaiye or the O’s defenders.

📷 Ben James

After about 25 minutes of stalemate football, coach Stephens made his first change with Steph McCaffrey being replaced by top scorer Poppy Binding. While the addition of Binding did cause Brentford trouble, nothing came out of Orient’s continued attack and numerous resulting corners.

The Bees did have some chances, nevertheless. Durojaiye was called on to make a very good save about 30 minutes in from a marauding Brentford press, in what turned out to be their best chance of the half. Despite continued attacks and majority of the match being played in the Brentford half of the pitch, Orient frustratingly could not find the back of the net. After 45 minutes both teams headed to their locker rooms without a goal being scored.

Just before the second half got underway, the skies opened-up. The strong north wind made the rain fall horizontally and players from both sides shivered waiting for play to resume. But thankfully for the O’s, they were attacking with the wind to their backs. As with the first half, Orient were the more aggressive side. Olivia McGregor, who came on for Abbi Smith, was causing heaps of trouble for the larger Brentford players. Orient too upped their physical game, resulting in a Bees player hitting the turf around 10 minutes into the half and causing a slight delay whilst she was treated.

Orient’s attacking philosophy finally came to fruition just beyond 60 minutes. A foul by Brentford resulted in a free kick near their box. Well taken by the always dangerous Poppy Binding, it was touched into goal by Georgia Griffin. One – nil to the O’s!

With the deadlock finally broken, the game began to flow a little bit more. The Bees immediately tried to bounce back and were rewarded with a free kick of their own, due to an inadvertent ball-to-hand infraction. However, the resulting free kick was well saved by Durojaiye, who was a serious shout for the O’s player of the match.

📷 Ben James

Just past 80 minutes and Brentford conceded another corner. This time they were not able to wriggle off the hook as O’s captain Grace Gillard smashed home a corker to the top left-hand side of the net. Two – nil Orient!

From there, Brentford appeared to concede defeat and were lucky not to let in a third goal from a Wiki Fronc strike before the referee blew for the final whistle. Handshakes and acknowledgments of a well-fought match were made between the players as both teams quickly retreated to the warmth of their heated dressing rooms.

While this was no means a free-flowing game, it was certainly entertaining, especially given the poor weather conditions. Orient came away with what they wanted – a trip to the JGMT semi-finals and a treble of silverware still in the cards.

Ben James ✍

Orient Outlook Podcast

If you prefer a brief overview of the match - and have someone read it out for you, look no further than Paul and Steve at Orient Outlook Podcast, staunch supporters of the Orient Women's project. Click the image below to go straight to their report on the Brentford game. No subscriptions or login required...

News Snippets

AFC Bournemouth's all conquering women!

As much as we dislike harking back to that big defeat we suffered at Brisbane Road in the FA Cup, that 7:1 scoreline still hurts! To put it in some context, AFC Bournemouth have continued to show strongly in the National League Southern Premier (Tier 3) and currently lay in 3rd spot but are still in with a good chance of promotion to the professional Super League 2. On Saturday, they also won the National League Cup Final at Loftus Road against Plymouth Argyle. Credit where credit's due, they are a top side nationally. Heaven knows they didn't need us to give them a three goal start!

Sunday's live-text show

If you prefer to see read a full review of the game, minute by minute, as it happened, you can view it at our: LIVE-TEXT show which was followed by over 400 people as the game unfolded. Our gratitude and appreciation to everyone who tuned in and a special word of thanks to our chief correspondent Larry Peterson who has the job of watching the action, remembering exactly what just happened and then bashing his phone to send the details over to the lofcwomen.com ivory tower for broadcast.

Abbi Smith - much in demand

📷 Larry Peterson

It was good to see the return of Abbi Smith into the red Orient kit for Sunday's game. Abbi is one of a number of players who have dual registration, they can play for two teams in the same season so long as they are not in competition with each other. So it was that Abbi was not available the previous Sunday for our away win at South London WFC. Abbi was busy, playing at Tier 3, for Billericay Town - in the same league as AFC Bournemouth. Sadly, Billericay have lost every game this season. That can't be easy. A 14:0 loss a couple of weeks ago to leaders Watford just goes to prove that huge gaps in ability exist throughout the women's game.

Sunday's League Cup results.

In the interests of clarity, the cup competition, which is run entirely for teams in the five divisions of the Greater London Women's Football League, is formally called the "John Greenacre Memorial Trophy" (JGMT). We don't recall John but it seems he was a major force behind the development of the GLWFL. We call it the 'GLWFL League Cup'- just in case you were wondering!
Here are Sunday's results. All are league cup games as the only League game booked was at AFC Croydon which was postponed for the umpteenth time.

So we reach the semi-final stage of the competition and only Premier division clubs remain. Assuming the draw follows the normal format, the semi-finals will be between Islington Borough VS Tooting Bec, and Luton Town Dev VS Leyton Orient. The league has yet to publish the few remaining league and cup fixtures but now they know who will play who, we expect that to be put right in short order. We will bring them to you as soon as get them.

A nice story emerges from the Islington Boro game. They had a shortage of players when they came to Cheshunt in a Capital Cup 1/4 final in February against Orient and needed to draft in teenaged twins Maggie and Kate Farrer for their debuts. It was Maggie who popped up to hit the 82nd minute winner yesterday (Sunday) to get the Boro ladies through to the semi-finals. It's good to see youngsters making progress.

The GLWFL Premier division table remains as it did two weeks ago and looks like this.
The league season is 18 games long ....

There are no matches scheduled for the Easter weekend.
We'll take a break until the next dates are known.
Don't go away!