FOR LEYTON ORIENT FANS WHO REMEMBER THE GLORY DAYS OF THE EARLY 60s...
THE UNTOLD STORY OF O's BEST-EVER TEAM...
REVIEWS
From O's Ex-players
Many thanks for a brilliant book. It brought back lots and lots of lovely memories, as if it was yesterday.
It was my pleasure to play with great players like your dad, Terry McDonald, Dave Dunmore, Phil White, Stan Charlton, Eddie Baily, Ken Facey, Norman Deeley, Ted Phillips and many more, plus the chairman Harry Zussman and director Leslie Grade, who made it a great family club.
I have ordered three more copies of the book, for my two sons and my brother, who have already read it and think it is brilliant.
It was sad to hear of the loss of Bill Robertson and Bill Taylor and a great friend of mine, Alan Sealey. Lovely people.
Congratulations on a great book.
Harry Gregory
Congratulations on your wonderful book. Having the insight of the O's history of the 60s brought back to me many happy memories and happy tears.
The enormous work you and your dedicated team have put into the book, it must be worth the years it's taken to produce. I hope you sell every copy!
Ron Foster
Many, many thanks for the Orient book. It brought back lots of wonderful memories and I hope it goes well for you.
Best wishes.
Dave Dunmore
Just to say thank you for the book. I have not been able to put it down, it has bought back many happy memories.
Please give my regards to Terry and I hope he is well.
Thanks again.
Mal Lucas
It was a pleasure to read Leyton Orient the untold story. It's well written, factual and must have brought back a lot of memories for the players of that era. Under different circumstances, I could have been there! Good luck with the book.
Tommy Johnston
From other readers
Last night I took your book to bed with me and I have to say that I got so caught up in it that I didn't turn in until gone half-past four! It's a great read and after the disappointment of yesterday's game, it was good to be able to escape back to those fantastic times at the O's in the early 60s.
Well done, mate, for getting our golden hour put on to the record in such a detailed way and thanks for your mention about myself and my team at the supporters' club. It's always a privilege for us to welcome back old players, obviously some more than others, but Terry, Stan and Sid are that much more special to us and really are bedrocks of our extended Orient family. We love to see them around the club as often as possible.
Hope the sales are going well for you as a reward for your efforts.
Dave Dodd, Chairman Leyton Orient Supporters' Club
Thank you very much for the Leyton Orient book, which I was delighted to receive. It is a very impressive achievement - very professionally put together, if I may say so. I was delighted that you published part of my piece in your final chapter. It is a privilege to be part of it.
In the photo on page 182 the "unknown" person is, I think, Johnny Nichols.
It is fascinating, and sometimes sad, to read of what has become of the players. This is particularly true of Sid Bishop who was one of my schoolboy heroes and an excellent role-model. I would very much like to drop him a line.
I entirely agree with you that Stan Charlton thoroughly deserves to be known as 'Mister Leyton Orient' and it is good to read good things of DD - what a player! Having said that, I take back not one word of what I said about your Dad - THE star of those early, heady days in the first division.
So, many congratulations on a fine piece of work.
Roy Ludlow, Winsley, Wiltshire
I've just got to write and congratulate you on the super book about the 1961-62 and 1962-63 seasons. It's a terrific read and the fact that it includes all the views and opinions of virtually all the players of that time really makes it so interesting.
It gives such a good insight into the club at that time and with your dad knowing all the players and being a playing colleague of them, it makes it so absorbing to read their thoughts on their team-mates, etc. It's a really smashing book, a really superb piece of work on your part and I honestly mean that. I can't put it down. Well done.
And, by the way, the unknown player in the photo on page 182 is John Nichols. He came through O's junior ranks and was a real hard-tackling full-back. Sadly, he had to give up football after breaking his leg in a reserve match in 1960.
Alan Ravenhill, Walthamstow, London E17 Alan is co-author of the book, Leyton Orient: The Complete Record, as well as the Leyton Orient Pictorial History
As a long suffering Orient fan of more than 45 years. I was absolutely enthralled to read this in-depth account of what really went on behind the scenes in our most glorious era of the early 60s.
It brought back so many happy memories recalling the games from our 1961-62 promotion season and then (bliss!) our one and only year in the old First Division. What I really enjoyed about this book most, is how it has brought all our old favourites to life again, as characters in their own right. It's clear that Tony McDonald had privileged access to the ex-players featured in the book, and made the most of it to re-capture all their memories of what life was like with the O's back then, on and off the field.
Far from being a boring recollection of facts and figures (they are at the back if you want to study them), this book goes much deeper and gives us supporters a great insight into the different personalities at the time. It's clever too, the way even the sadly deceased players and management team are not forgotten, they live on in the personal thoughts of their living colleagues. I found it funny in places, but also quite sad to hear of the struggles of these heroes of mine (and my husband's) have been through over the years since they left the Orient.
I can honestly say that this is the most entertaining and interesting book I have read on the O's. Most football books with a historical slant to them are just easily available stats and rehashed previously published material. THIS IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT. I am pleased to say.
Great photographs, many I have never seen published before. The fact that they have also taken the time to track down the players and talk to them, and picture them as they are now in most cases. Is a great tribute to all those involved.
We fought over it in our house, it will have pride of place among our collection of O books.
This book deserves to sell heaps and heaps, no O's fan should be without it.
BUY IT.
Anne Walker, Holland-on-Sea, Essex.
I have just received the Leyton Orient book from you, and I must say, it's the best O's book I have ever read! It means a lot to me in many ways.
My dad is in the picture on page 69, bottom row 2nd one on the right. He supported them when he was a boy, first supporting Clapton Orient, and he even managed to move to Osbourne Road, opposite the main entrance, to be nearer them! He would have been so proud to have seen that photo. I bought a paver outside the new West Stand with his name on, although he died in 1979. No wonder I became a lifelong O's fan.
I even believe that it is me on page 66, right in front of Cyril Lea, looking very dated! We are having discussions at home about whether it's me or not! I am 59 now, but remember the game vividly (Well done, Malcolm Graham!).
Tony, I was at the game when your dad scored against Man. Utd. I was just about on the halfway line (in O's half) when your dad cut in from the left wing and hit it with his right foot into the roof of the net, from outside the area. What a goal!
Some of my many favourite players those days were Dave Dunmore, Eddie Lewis (who I saw on TV when I was in Cape Town last year) and your dad, because I was a winger then, although got converted to midfield after England won the World Cup, and wingers became redundant! I was playing for Harlow Town then, managed by Ralph Whetton, who used to play for Spurs.
Once again, congratulations on writing a great book.
Tony Bell, Paignton, Devon
Many thanks for reviving great memories. If only Mr Hearn would send the O's out in the right colours, I'm sure the great days would return.
Bernie Davenport (via email)
This book should be compulsory reading for all of today's pampered Premiership prima-donnas. The author, Tony McDonald, has enjoyed privileged access to many members of Orient's greatest team thanks to his dad, Terry, who was one of the stars of the show in the O's spectacular rise to the top.
But this is not the Terry McDonald story (even if he did score the winner against Manchester United!). Instead, thanks to the contributions of the squad, 'Untold Story' unfolds into an enchanting tale of East End life in the 60s, where fame - but certainly not fortune - briefly engulfed Brisbane Road.
Just picture comedian Arthur Askey doing pre-match public address duties with Cliff Richard sitting in the stands! Imagine a scorer picking a bunch of daffodils from a flower bed behind the goal in celebration! Or a player being sent off for throwing mud at another player!
Add in the manager using training sessions to practice tying boot laces and you will start to get the picture that this superb story is not just a collection of mundane match reports.
After being promoted with Liverpool (honest!) Leyton Orient turned Brisbane Road into the field of dreams after beating Everton, West Ham and Manchester United inside the space of 12 days. You only have to look at today's league tables to see what happened in the end but as another writer once wrote: 'It is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.' Well, as far as the O's are concerned it is better to have played in the top flight and lost than never to have been there at all.
You don't have to be an Orient fan - I'm not - to enjoy McDonald's well researched and well-written book, which makes you long for the days when football was played for pennies by the common man for the common man, without a Russian rouble or prawn sarnie in sight. Thoroughly recommended.
S.P. Bloomer, Romford, Essex
Those heroes, those men of steel; strong, courageous, fully committed. I was just mesmerised by them back in 1962/63. I was only 10-years-old and been supporting the O's for just two seasons.
Every home match I, my dad and my good friend Roy, would be behind the goal at the Buckingham Road end; blue and white cap and scarf. I even made a rattle (remember them?).
Your book is a most wonderful read. Way back in those days the Orient team were just footballers to me. Real men I could look up to and dream that one day I'd be like them.
Your book brought home a completely different side. They were also just normal young men (or in the case of Stan Charlton just a little bit older than young) enjoying life in their late teens and twenties. They went to the pub, socialised, got into scrapes, flirted with women. It never occurred to me that my superheroes were just normal people.
Reading their story brought a huge dose of nostalgia; took me back to the days of euphoria when we were promoted and utmost dejection, sadness and tears when it all came crashing down just a season later. Oh was I miserable - it was like a death in the family.
Sid Bishop was my very own, Boy's Own, all-time hero. Nobody was a better professional. I can't remember ever see him foul an opponent. To me he was my complete footballer; why he never played for England still baffles me.
Reading the Untold Story brought back those wonderful, happy, carefree days and also sadness. I look at all those photographs of the team in action - just young kids really. I look at strong, dark haired, handsome Sid Bishop in his centre-half role, then I turn to page 250 and there is Sid today. That brought a real tear to my eye.
You sent me one of the copies signed by your dad - thanks; I've got great memories of his playing days. Give him (and give them all) my very best regards. Tell them I'm just one of the 20-30,000 supporters who they gave so much joy and sadness to. My thanks go to them - they are all so much part of my growing up.
Russell Roworth (via email)
Which of these two books covers the two memorable seasons better? With this period being so poorl-served by any other of the growing number of O's books, these are both welcome additions to the Orient library.
There are plenty of details and statistics about matches and players in both books, but there is ultimately a clear difference between the two. Kevin Palmer's A Season in the Sun is a well put together record of the making and breaking up of the team that achieved so much. It has fewer spelling mistakes and no self-indulgent bits, but it lacks important things that are included in The Untold Story.
Tony McDonald personally interviewed as many of the people involved as he could find. Their tales, although not always scintillating reading, lift his book into another league. Most of the stories above are from The Untold Story and many will enjoy the other fascinating details that the book reveals about life as a footballer at Orient in the early 60s. McDonald has also included a far superior range of photographs and reproductions of newspaper headlines, which evoke the time and really bring the book alive. For good measure, he has thrown in some memories from fans at the end.
At the end of an exciting and enjoyable contest, it's The Untold Story of The O's Best-Ever Team 4, A Season in the Sun 2.
Leyton Orientear fanzine
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