Our latest away trip was a visit back to a familiar haunt with a midweek journey down to Devon to take on Exeter City. Exeter are a team that we never seem to go too long without playing, and this was evident with this being my 22nd visit there with Orient.

Exeter is a cracking place to visit, and is reachable with frequent trains from Paddington. The more adventurous can go the Waterloo route which is usually cheaper but takes an hour longer. You’ll most likely arrive at St Davids station, which is around a mile from the town centre. There are frequent trains to Exeter Central though which is, as the name suggests, more handily placed for the town centre.

A midweek trip did give us a bit more time in town, and enabled us to visit a few pubs – The Mill On The Exe, The Prospect Inn and the White Hart in the town centre and the Bowling Green which was a few minutes walk from the ground. All of these are well worth a visit (Special mention to the food in the White Hart as it was superb). We did have one other pub on the list, the Bishops Blaize, but unfortunately it was closed.

Exeter are in a similar position to Orient in that they have pretty much expanded capacity as much as they can. The huge ‘Big Bank’ Terrace behind the goal is the centrepiece of the ground, and it is complemented by two decent new stands along the side. Away fans get a covered terrace behind the goal, which I believe used to be at The Hive in Barnet until Exeter took it on.

Again the team virtually picked itself amidst the injury crisis, with Kelman leading the line supported by new signings Markanday and Abdulai. Orient flew out of the blocks and raced into an early lead when Markanday found Abdulai who fired through a crowd into the bottom corner. The celebrations had barely finished when Orient found themselves 2-0 up. Jamie Donley chested the ball down and hit an audacious cross-field volley into the path of Abdulai, who was given the freedom of Exeter to slot home his second. Shortly after this Sean Clare curled an absolute beauty into the top corner as Orient went 3-0 up with not even 15 minutes played. After 34 minutes Markanday made it 4-0 when Exeter lost possession trying to play out from the back, and he also found himself in acres of space with the simplest of finishes in front of him.

Exeter came out for the second half and had obviously got a bit of the hairdryer treatment as they quickly got two goals back in quick succession. Both goals were pretty much carbon copies of each other as the Orient defence couldn’t cope with the physical presence of Alli as he headed home two crosses. In days gone by it would have been ‘Typical Orient’ to collapse at this point. However, as we’ve seen on numerous times this season, this is no ‘typical Orient’ team. They rode out the storm of an Exeter team that had worked up a head of steam, before Abdulai steered a cross into the bottom corner to make it 5-2. Just as you thought the game would just fizzle out, Jamie Donley popped up to Volley home an outrageous effort that he really had no right to score from. This wrapped up a remarkable 6-2 scoreline, which I believe is a first for me in over 1500 matches attended.

Results elsewhere meant that we finished the night in the playoff places, which is unbelievable when you consider just two short months previous a defeat to Huddersfield left Orient in the relegation zone. We’ve got a huge February in front of us. We play a lot of teams that are pushing for the playoff places, as well as a certain cup tie which nobody seems to fussed about. See you there.