However, not all are investing in the neighbourhood that nurtured them.
Rotherham's impossible situation shows football is broken
Read More“Last minute, top left hand corner,” Travis said, his face betraying a sense of accomplishment that never gets old.
The FA Cup has thrust this hardy perennial of the lower leagues back into the nation’s gaze with a fourth-round tie at home to Manchester City, a match that according to Travis ranks among the biggest in the club’s history, given the growing power of the City brand.
The modest training ground in the leafy suburb of Chigwell, where London leaks into Essex, is a melting pot of footballing grandees, including former Spurs owner Sir Alan Sugar and West Ham majority owner David Sullivan.
In the age of the hipster club, a landscape where the likes of Bournemouth and Brentford, Brighton and Fulham prosper among the elite, the scale for that in London E10 is obvious.
Ethan Galbraith of Leyton Orient scores the winning goal against Boreham Wood (Photo: Getty)The visit of City means eyeballs, particularly in the United States, a country increasingly wedded to the English national game via ownership of its top clubs, including United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal, and the success of those TV staples Ted Lasso and Welcome to Wrexham.
Whilst the exposure brought to Wrexham by its Hollywood ownership of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney has given them an important foothold in the growing American market, it is the millions they have pumped into the club that has enabled their rise through the divisions.
“Wrexham have done a fantastic job for the game,” Travis tells The i Paper.
“My favourite quote when we got promoted a couple of years ago came from someone who said ‘can I congratulate you on your relegation?’ English football produces excitement. Wrexham is a fantastic story, Bournemouth, Brighton and Brentford are all aspirational.
Orient has always been touched by romance, largely by virtue of not being an Arsenal or a Spurs or a West Ham, a London club rooted in community that thrives on second-club energy, their results of interest to those whose primary attachments lie elsewhere.
'Our people are the heartbeat': The League Two club run by volunteers
Read MoreTravis remembers when Sixties theatrical impresario Bernard Delfont was involved in running the club and Warren Mitchell, who played arch West Ham diehard Alf Garnett in Sixties sitcom Till Death Us Do Part, was a regular in the Brisbane Road posh seats now occupied by the Lloyd-Webbers.
The City match has piqued huge interest in the United States, with The New York Times no less one of many American outlets preparing pieces ahead of the game, which will be shown live on ESPN Plus.
Whilst he is augmenting the club’s profile in the media space, Travis has also commissioned an investment bank to chase the money required to fund Orient’s push for a new stadium and training complex that will underpin the push towards the Championship and, perhaps, into the promised land itself, the Premier League.
The club is outperforming a midtable budget of £8m a year, with annual losses estimated at £3m, a chunk, yet approximately half the League One average.
“This year we set two goals; to advance in some cup competitions because we haven’t had a very good record. We’ve achieved that and to progress over our league position last year, which was 11th. We look on track to do that.
The first-team squad are put through their paces at Brisbane Road (Photo: Getty)
Travis is part of the growing community of streamers who pay a tenner a game to watch Orient from anywhere in the world, a seismic contrast to the days when his father would have to fax results to America if he were to keep track of the team when he left for the States in 1989.
“The Premier League is brilliantly covered over here [America] and has got everyone fixated to the degree they are now getting into the rest of the leagues,” he said.
“‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘Well, I own a football club,’ I said. ‘Which one?’ ‘Leyton Orient’.
“I have people asking me if they can go see Orient when they are coming to London. Once they go, that’s it. They are hooked. A friend of my 19-year-old went a couple of years ago. She has been to lots of sports events and said that it was her best experience ever.”
When he walked toward the spot, Kelman had no idea that the match rested on his boot. Had he missed Orient’s fifth kick, Derby would have been banking the extra £300,000 broadcast bounty guaranteed when City came out of the hat.
“I knew they had scored all their pens but I was so in the zone I stepped up, knew where it was going to go, the rest is history.”
My day behind the scenes at Lincoln City - the EFL's great overachievers
Read More“You step into this environment you feel part of the journey,” he said.
“The club is building a solid infrastructure and the chairman knows what the next steps are. It feels like this is a story just waiting to happen.”
“I have been playing first-team football since I was 17, learning on the job,” he said.
“People are really fighting for their livelihoods. You know you are in for a fight when you get smashed in the first five minutes. No-one lets you off.
The arrival of City offers Kelman a chance to operate in a more refined setting and to measure himself against the best, not least the peerless Erling Haaland.
“City are the best of the best. People say they aren’t doing that well but they are still the elite of the elite for me. But we are not coming for tea and biscuits.
Orient fans seen wearing a half and half scarf before the clash with Manchester City (Photo: Getty)
Part of that was watching City’s fall at Arsenal, or it was supposed to be until Kelman’s partner intervened.
“It was getting late. She had spent the previous day in the cold watching me play. She loves watching me, but she was just hungry.
“You play in front of thousands every weekend and come home and you are just a normal person. It’s so different to what people think.”
“I’m sure it will sink in when we are in the tunnel,” Kelman said.
“We are back in League One and challenging for things. It’s been a privilege to be part of it and to give something back.”
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The ‘Brentford of the East End’ thriving on second-club energy )
Also on site :