LFW spent Thursday evening taking a trip down memory lane as Lee Cook and Martin Rowlands turned out for their new club Leyton Orient against Brentford.
My brother, who splits his time equally between philosophising and womanising, once remarked over a beer that “no good has ever come from Facebook.” Not a single positive thing.
It should be pointed out that the purpose of the beer was to commiserate over the latest instance of curiosity killing the sex kitten, and his relationship with her, thanks to his consistently slapdash approach to logging out of his account when preparing to leave his laptop unattended. Those archived personal messages can be a pest.
For attractive, sociable people like him Facebook is for juggling potential and current partners and occasionally getting caught out by one of them. For unattractive, unsociable people like me it’s for perving over the holiday photographs of girls I used to fancy in college. Isn’t the internet wonderful: you’d have been locked up for that sort of thing 25 years ago, first and foremost because you’d have had to break into her house to get hold of them, and now it’s all freely available. That’s a sign of a society progressing. Or going to hell in a handcart, sometimes it’s hard to tell.
Perhaps one of the reasons I’m reduced to this behaviour is because while the nubile, successful, single members of the city’s society were out enjoying the final warm weather “Thirsty Thursday” of the summer I was at home watching Leyton Orient play Brentford. Looks like you’ll be waiting a while yet for those grandkids mum.
Luckily, the self loathing was stemmed slightly by actually having some sort of purpose for tuning in. Not enough purpose to stop me drawing the curtains at LFW Towers so the neighbours couldn’t see what I was up to, but a reason all the same.
You see Orient are halfway towards assembling a vintage QPR midfield, and there’s a couple of old flames flickering away down there in League One. Lee Cook admitted his defeat in the quest to win a Championship contract this summer and signed on for six months, and his old partner in crime from Loftus Road Martin Rowlands followed suit. All manager Russell Slade has to do now is persuade Wycombe’s Gareth Ainsworth to go round again and be impressed by a sudden spike in form from Marc Bircham at Aylesbury and glory shall surely be his. In the meantime, Cookie and Rowly faced the old, old enemy Brentford in front of the Sky cameras.
I recall my dad taking me along to watch QPR win a pre-season friendly at Brisbane Road circa 1994 when I was about ten. The ground was a crumbling wreck, situated in a vile slum. The pub my dad took us in on the Leyton High Road had three bouquets of flowers outside marking a knife fight the evening before. Outside the ground we saw Clive Allen – who bears responsibility for my Christian name – and when I ran up to tell him that and ask him to sign my programme he just seemed happy I wasn’t trying to thieve his wallet.
But times have changed. Orient, as we all know, believe they are entitled to the Olympic Stadium and fear the effect of a West Ham move there on their average attendance. If chairman Barry Hearn was hoping to use this rare televised fixture as an opportunity to stake his case then he’ll have been disappointed. Brisbane Road is now called the Matchroom Stadium, and is unrecognisable except for the old grand stand down one side. Three stands have been redeveloped entirely, with money coming from high rise residential developments in the corners. Tenants gathered on their balconies and sipped glasses of wine while watching the action through the summer evening smog. It could almost be described as well appointed.
One thing it can definitely be described as is less than half full. A London derby – admittedly one available in any pub or Sky-enabled television set – attracted 3,333 people and those on the far side sat one to a row.
Brentford are managed by former Manchester City striker Uwe Rösler– one of those quirky situations that arises in the lower leagues occasionally like when Jan Molby turned up at Swansea, or Ramon Diaz at Oxford United. A year ago I saw his Brentford version 1.1 out pass, out play and out score Premier League Stoke in a pre-season friendly and while the personnel has changed substantially from then the ethos remains the same.
Rösler’s team has developed a reputation for the quality of its football, and the profligacy of its finishing. Clayton Donaldson – tall, rangy, a goal every other start in his Crewe days – has bagged four already this season but has missed at least that many gilt edged chances besides and was in particularly wayward mood here. Rösler watched the majority of the game with the resigned smile of somebody who knows he could probably still do better himself – although having left highly rated striker Farid El Allagui on the bench alongside one of the division’s outstanding midfield players Sam Saunders he has to shoulder some responsibility for what ultimately turned out to be a 1-0 defeat. It says something for the ability of our former charge Antonio German that he can’t get a sniff of first team football at Griffin Park.
Probably just as well, the Brentford fans don’t much care for QPR types, although they seemed to rather take to Marcus Bean eventually. The travelling faithful abused Martin Rowlands from the first whistle, and gave Lee Cook plenty of stick as well.
Cook and Rowlands in their prime were wonderful players. During the managerial reigns of John Gregory and Gary Waddock they single handedly kept the team afloat – Rowlands battling against the tide in the centre of the park and feeding Cook to produce those trademark crosses which Dexter Blackstock used to thrive on. Blackstock scored 14 goals in 2006/07 and 12 of them were assisted by Cook. Here he tried that trademark trick of feigning to cut inside, widening the angle instead , and delivering an early cross round the back or an unset defence a few times. I always lament Cook’s knee giving up on him before he ever got a chance at Premier League level – God only knows how frustrated he must be about that.
Sadly he was servicing Michael Symes, who was so truly appalling that Cook would have had more joy attempting shots from the touchline himself. When awarded a first half free kick by the corner flag he did just that and by missing the top corner by six or seven feet provided the lone moment of excitement in the first 75 minutes of a truly woeful encounter. Both Cook and Rowlands produced moments that made you think they still have it somewhere within them, but given the lack of quality around them, the advancing years, and the state of their knees, it takes a little longer to shine through these days.
Orient paired Symes with Kevin Lisbie – briefly a QPR loanee in the 2000/01 relegation season and a key part of Gerry Francis’ experiment with a 4-2-4 formation that lasted precisely 40 minutes of an away game at Sheffield Wednesday that finished 5-2 in favour of the hosts. Lisbie hasn’t improved much in the meantime on this evidence, and formed a cutting edge as sharp as a wooden spoon alongside Symes.
Eventually Slade tired of the monotony and sent on Stoke lonee Ryan Brunt who, at just 19, was far superior to either Lisbie or Symes and quickly turned home the winning goal from an offside position after Rowlands had crafted a lofted pass back into the danger area after a set piece had been cleared. Rowly looked delighted. Not exactly rolling back the years, but a blissful moment of quality in what seemed like three days worth of festering awfulness.
This was the fourth time in five league games that Orient had either won or lost 1-0. The previous week Cook had nipped in at the back post to bust a few coupons with a winning goal at Swindon Town then angered opposition manager Paulo Di Canio by taking a long, slow, time wasting walk off after being substituted. Lewis Jones filed the following for LFW from the press box at the County Ground:
The last time I had seen Cook and Rowlands play professional football was when they appeared in Rangers’ Carling Cup defeat verses Port Vale last season. It was a sad way for two great servants of the club to bow out. Overweight and off-the-pace, it looked as though both players would struggle to command a place at any professional club in the future.
I turned up at the County Ground in more hope than expectation about seeing how both players were faring at this level, knowing that they are both far from match-fit after a stop-start pre-season. What actually transpired surprised me greatly. The pair were the best players on the pitch, arguably along with Swindon’s Matt Ritchie, and looked sharp, fit and in truth, too good for the level.
Cook played left-wing, was confident, and assured in possession. He even had that old Cook jink and shoulder swivel that we were so accustom to seeing a few years back. Granted, he has lost maybe half a yard of pace, but at League One, and even Championship level, he has the guile and creativity to cause teams problems. He was Orient’s best outlet throughout.
His teammates unfortunately weren’t on the same wavelength, Kevin Lisbie and Michael Symes both missed sitters in the first half after Cook done the donkey work down the left. He tired a little towards the end but his goal on 59 minutes at the back post was very well taken. Man of the Match, by a mile.
Rowlands too, playing central midfield, was his usual tenacious-self. Not as effective as Cook with the ball, he was instrumental in the final 25 minutes in organising his side to hold on for the 1-0 victory against a Swindon side that had previously not conceded at home in 12 hours of football, such was their dominance at home. Rowlands broke up play brilliantly, and kept the ball moving through midfield.
Anyway, Rowlands always delivers against Swindon; remember his goal in the penultimate game of the 2003/2004 season Loftus Road? Priceless. If fit, both will be crucial to Orient’s season. Cook, who’s only on a five-month deal, will be attracting Championship clubs to his door if staying in this vein of form.
It’s all a bit “look how far we’ve come” really, and a reminder for the next time you’re complaining about Bobby Zamora’s poor touch or Anton Ferdinand’s incorrect reading of the game. It’s also an opportune moment to remember what those two players did for our club.
QPR supporters are few and far between – to the extent where van drivers are so surprised to see me jogging around Barnet in hoops that they roll out a honk and cheer usually reserved for blondes in short skirts as they drive by, followed by a “You R’s”. At least, I think that’s what they yell. In Cook, Rowlands and Bircham we perhaps took for granted having players in the team who cared as much as we did. Those were dark times for the club, and without their extra commitment to the cause it’s doubtful we’d have survived in the Championship long enough for the takeover that subsequently propelled us to where we are today. If we’ been relegated, it’s doubtful we’d have existed at all in our current form. If only they’d been born slightly later and been able to stay fully fit, they could have been rewarded by playing left and right of Ale Faurlin and Esteban Granero now. Wouldn’t that have been wonderful?
Well, more wonderful than their latest victory against Brentford anyway. By full time I’d resorted to trimming my toe nails.
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Pictures – Action Images