by Greatwesternline »
06 Oct 2023 12:23
The football club now known as Leyton Orient, with that exotic moniker, was born of cricket, like so many others formed in the late 19th century.
Glyn Cricket Club was the brainchild of 12 old boys of Homerton College, a theological teacher training school for Puritans and Non-Conformists in Hackney, north London, in 1881 and played their matches at Glyn Road. They had become Eagle Cricket Club by the time Jack Dearing, a committee member, team player and employee of the Orient Steamship Navigation Company, took to his feet at a meeting held around the corner at 86 Dunlace Road in Hackney and proposed the name be changed to Orient.
The assumption is that there were other members of the Orient company – whose roots went back to the late 18th century – within the membership because the name change was embraced with enthusiasm. In the same meeting, those present proposed the formation of a football section so players could maintain their fitness in the winter, cricket’s off-season.
They became Clapton Orient in 1898 and, after moving another short distance within the area to Leyton in 1937, Leyton Orient following the Second World War.
Peninsular & Oriental (the famous P&O) bought a majority stake in the Orient Steamship Navigation Company in 1919 and hoovered up all the remaining shares in 1966, but the shipping firm’s original name will live on as long as the football club endures.