On Friday 1st November Leyton Orient Walking FC sent two teams, Reds & Golds, to take part in the Tottenham Truce Tournament at the Tottenham Hotspur Training Centre. The Truce Cup was held in celebration of the Christmas Day truce in the First World War when soldiers on both sides played a game of football. Tottenham’s Under 12 Academy players are involved in a project based around it and made a short presentation before the matches.

First up was a match between Orient Gold and Orient Red. Lining up for the Golds were Clancy in goal, Dooley and Franklin at the back, Harden and Paul Weston in midfield and Kassam up front. The Gold team controlled the game from start to finish with Franklin bagging a hat trick. Final score: Leyton Orient Red 0 v 3 Leyton Orient Gold (Franklin).

Next for Orient Golds were Arsenal who had a very familiar look about them with three players poached from the Orient squad. All change for this game with Paul Weston in goal, Clancy and Guerinni in defence, Gannon and Kotonou in midfield with Fionda up front. It was game of near zero goal attempts with both defences on top. Eventually the game was decided by a penalty as a result of Guereni stepping inside the area. Final score: Leyton Orient Gold 0 v 1 Arsenal.

The second and most chastening match for the Orient Reds was a defeat to Spurs, with purs forward, who would not have looked out of place if he had turned right at the gate into the first team reception with Kulusevski and Bentancur rather than left into the main reception with the walking footballers, scoring twice. The second was an unstoppable effort into the top corner. But it was not without controversy as the striker twice got away with two blatant elbows on Mullins that were missed by one of the referees on duty for the tournament who perhaps were not fully absorbed in the rules of walking football. Final score: Leyton Orient Reds 0 v 4 Spurs.

Orient Golds then faced Spurs. Reverting to the initial line up, Orient’s passing and movement were superb until their super striker, struck a shot against Franklin that spun inside the far post of the very wide goals. Orient chased the game, but unfortunately conceded another couple of goals. Final score: Leyton Orient Gold 0 v 3 Spurs.

Frustratinly Orient Reds took on an Arsenal side including our own Steve Eades loosing by two clear goals. Final score: Leyton Orient Reds 0 v 2 Arsenal.

There then followed the most disappointing result for Orient Reds, a single goal defeat, again to the Arsenal, when the Reds really should have taken at least a point from the game. The solitary Arsenal goal summed up the Reds frustration as it came during a mix up with the rolling substitutes that left the side momentarily at least one player short and Weston totally exposed without any sort of defence in front of him. Final score: Leyton Orient Reds 0 v 1 Arsenal.

Orient Gold then took on Spurs for the second time. With one intrepid Orient Six vanquished, there were wholesale changes with Franklin in goal; Guereni and Kotonou in defence; Clancy and Gannon in midfield and Fionda up front. Kotonou took on the challenge of man marking the Spurs striker. The brave Os held firm at the back and had some long range efforts saved and frustrated the opposition. Alas two goals were conceded, which meant Orient Gold would not be in the final. Final score: Orient Gold 0 v 2 Spurs.

And so it ended up with Orient Gold playing Orient Red in the third place play off. This final game finally saw the Reds get a tangible reward for their efforts and they could have won it had Julian Lillington’s shot managed to evade Paul Weston in the O’s goal rather than being well saved by the Golds goalie and rolling back to safety via a post. The first five minutes were well contested with Gold thwarted by Tony Weston in the Red goal. Gold almost broke the deadlock on two occasions with a sweeping move from right to left and right again where a first time shot from Fionda was well saved along with a Kotonou shot from a free kick. Late on, Paul Weston made an important save from Lillington pushing his shot onto the post. No penalties were required to separate the teams who finished joint third. Final score: Leyton Orient Gold 0 v 0 Leyton Orient Red.

As the two Orient teams competed on pitch two, Spurs were beating Arsenal 1-0 in the final on pitch one.

This was a memorable morning and a hugely enjoyable experience, with the nice touch from Spurs of their Under 12 academy side being on hand to help with the organisation, explain the historical context of the Truce Tournament and put the teams through their warm-up paces, including a ‘rondo’. Paul Newman was heard to say “I do wonder if there was a future superstar among us in those academy players?”

Paul went on to observe that when he arrived he was met by “The sight of two lines of autograph hunters and selfie seekers either side of the entrance eagerly awaiting the arrival of the players proved the Tottenham Truce Tournament was no ordinary event. For some reason those gathered outside Hotspur Way, the magnificent Spurs training centre in Enfield, trying to peer into every car that pulled up at the gate showed no interest in this ageing, bald driver of a little Vauxhall Corsa but rather more in the slightly newer, bigger and much flashier vehicle behind, driven by Dejan Kulusevski with Rodrigo Bentancur alongside.”

After play Gold’s captain, Paul Franklin said, “I would just like to add, thanks to all the players who represented Leyton Orient Golds. I know playing time was limited but it was all about giving players a chance to experience playing at Spurs training ground.”

Reds captain Mullins was philosophical afterwards, saying: “I thought everyone played well, it was just inevitable things would be a little disjointed with 10 minute matches and four rolling substitutes. I think everyone in our side with the exception of Julian are Spurs fans so it was a great thrill for all of us to play here.”

Leyton Orient Walking FC have snet their thanks and appreciation to Spurs for including their walking footballers in this tournament.

Leyton Orient Gold squad: Hassan Kassam, Steve Guerrini, Vince Dooley, Paul Weston, Tony Fionda, Jack Kotonou, Mark Harden,
Paul Franklin (Cpt), David Clancy, Ken Gannon.

Leyton Orient Red squad: Mick Mullins (Cpt), Tony Weston (Gk), Gerry Schneider, Dexter Coles, Mark Taylor, Tony Brooks, Tony Haley, Phil Duddridge, Julian Lillington, Paul Newman.

Goalscorers: Franklin 3

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Image used © 2024 Tottenham Hotspur’s

Location

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