As well as signing several significant players, Dick Graham’s legacy included his suggestion that Orient should appoint a player-manager as his successor to save money. When Jimmy Bloomfield, a cultured inside-forward formerly of Arsenal and still playing for Plymouth, applied for the job, the board decided he was an excellent fit.
After Peter Angell had been in change for one game as caretaker, Bloomfield took over in March 1968 for the first away win of the season, two own goals leading to a 3-2 success at Gillingham. He soon put himself in the team, at Peter Allen’s expense, and by leading from on the pitch and tightening up the defence eased any relegation worries to finish 19th.
The 1968-69 campaign was an uneven one that began and ended in excitement but sagged in the middle. Former England winger Peter Brabrook joined from West Ham, doubling the gate on his August debut for a 3-3 thriller against Tommy Docherty’s Rotherham and starring in a run of six wins and two draws that for the first time in seven years had O’s supporters staring at the top end of the table.
In October, however, those fans were bitterly disappointed when leading scorer Vic Halom was sold to Fulham, who the O’s had knocked out of the League Cup. Micky Bullock and Barry Dyson arrived as replacements but a poor run towards the end of the season meant needing a victory in the final game at home to Shrewsbury to stay out of the fourth division.
On an exhilerating night it was duly achieved 4-0, but without any suggestion that this was a side with title-winning potential.
Bloomfield retired from playing for the new season and Dickie Plume was the one new signing until Mark Lazarus returned to the club after nine years. That pair were among a group of just 14 outfield players used to win the title.
On Boxing Day a crowd of nearly 18,000 saw Luton beaten and deposed as the league leaders and with games in hand the O’s were always favourites for promotion, achieved with three matches to go; and then the championship, secured when Lazarus headed the only goal at home to Shrewsbury.
‘Consistency has really been the keynote,’ Bloomfield wrote in the final match programme, pointing out that his team had not lost two league games in succession all season.
The defence of Goodard in goal, Jones, Mancini, Taylor and Rofe was outstanding, with easily the fewest goals conceded. But what was overlooked amid the celebrations was that eight teams scored as many as Orient’s 67 goals. That proved the weakness back in the Second Division, where a shocking total of 29 scored in 42 games was the joint lowest in the country.
The O’s stayed up, however, thanks to another good defensive record and Bloomfield had done well enough to attract the attention of champions Leicester City, who lost their manager Frank O’Farrell to Manchester United.
He stayed at Filbert Street for six years, returning to the O’s to take over from the man who had succeeded him, George Petchey, after Peter Angell had again stood in briefly as caretaker. The ever-loyal Angell was required again towards the end of the season when Bloomfield was admitted to hospital just as a famous FA Cup run was warming up. After victories over Norwich and Blackburn, the manager missed the ties with Chelsea and Middlesbrough but was back for the semi-final defeat by Arsenal and then for the nail-biting climax to the league season. This time it was necessary to win away to Cardiff, which was achieved by Peter Kitchen’s 29th goal of the season, lifting the O’s clear of relegation despite being the division’s second lowest scorers.
Kitchen, top scorer in the whole of Division Two, was not a fan of the manager, who he felt was too defensive-minded, playing with a back five for the second half of the season, when league form collapsed.
In February 1979 ‘after a number of disputes with Jimmy Bloomfield’ Kitchen was sold to Fulham. Seventh in Division Two at the time, the O’s dropped to 11th and embarked on a new and surprising policy of signing big-name forwards towards the end of their careers.
The exciting trio of Ralph Coates, Stan Bowles and Peter Taylor – all with four or five England caps at their peak – plus Alan Whittle and Billy Jennings were all signed between 1978 and 1981 but after that one season in the top half of the table, the team finished only 14th and 17th.
It was a brave attempt by the board under chairman Brian WInston, paying wages that could hardly be justified by gates that were down to 6,000 in 1980-81. Unexpectedly that turned out to be Jimmy’s last season at Orient. Infuriated by the decision to sell young winger John Chiedozie to newly promoted Notts County, he resigned.
He will be fondly remembered as the manager who won the Third Division title in 1970 and then led the O’s on their greatest FA Cup run eight years later – latterly from a hospital bed. Few people realised how serious his illness was, and it was a shock to the whole football world when he died from cancer in April 1983, aged only 49.
