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Bizarre scenes as Gillingham players fume at Leyton Orient celebrating promotion amid power-cut

There were bizarre scenes at Priestfeld as Gillingham players fume at Leyton Orient celebrating promotion amid stoppage for a power-cut.

Leyton Orient was promoted from League Two despite a 2-0 loss and going down to 10-men at Gillingham.

Bradford City’s 1-0 loss to Swindon meant that the O’s will be returning to League One after eight years.

Orient saw Omar Beckles sent off for denying a goal-scoring chance. Alex MacDonald scored from the resulting Gills free-kick to give them the lead.

Cheye Alexander’s penalty grabbed the host’s second of the night after Idris Mizouni’s handball following a MacDonald’s free-kick.

With 12 minutes to go, the game was stopped by a failure of the floodlights. However, when play resumed with Orient already knowing that they were going up after learning the outcome at Swindon.

Orient are seven points ahead of Northampton, but more importantly they are 13 points ahead of Bradford who was the only team that could mathematically prevent them from making it into the top three.

The victory of Gillingham also prevented them from relegation, as both sides played out the remaining time.

Leyton Orient found out they’d been promoted in darkness, with their game against Gillingham halted before resuming but heard other results had gone their way.

The players and staff wasted no time to start celebrations with Gillingham players unhappy as they wanted to get the game restarted, the rest of the game saw no attack, threat and just passing to each other.

Leyton Orient manager Richie Wellens:

“Leyton Orient never make things easy, and even the lights got involved tonight! Whoever was messing around with that generator in Gillingham wasn’t going to help us out.

“We only became aware of the Swindon score when our fans started celebrating. I’m so proud of the players and I’m proud of the supporters.

“The club deserves this – a few months ago we were 20th in the league and looking over our shoulders. Now we’ve got the opportunity to flex our muscles against some real massive clubs.

“I thought at times tonight we were unbelievable. Obviously the sending off changed a lot, but even when it was 11 versus 10 we put on a performance. It was just a shame that the referee wanted to be the highlight of the show.

“We’ll take our medicine tonight, but we’ll do all we can to get enough points to win the title. I’m sure the supporters will make a big day of it at home on Saturday.”

 

SEE MORE: List of promotions, relegations and playoff confirmations – 18th April 2023

Fans reacted to the bizarre scenes as Gillingham players fume at Leyton Orient celebrating promotion amid a power-cut…

@JohnDaw98841022: Respect that from the ref so much, games already stopped for floodlight failure, let them have their moment as they found out

@PeterFullman2: It’s sour grapes from the Gills players. In Wellens interview after he said that he’d spoken to Neil Harris and kinda agreed that the last 10 minutes would not be competitive. They’ll be playing fourth tier football next season unlike those who were celebrating

@AndrewB76214171: I can understand them wanting to celebrate but surely a bit of professionalism required here while the game is going on, disrespectful to the opposition…

@slaw0604: I know the “O’s” would’ve been pleased but that’s a bit unprofessional really isn’t it.

@Orch06: That’s what it means

@Dan_Coleman98: Love the fact the Gillingham players moan about us celebrating 😄 #lofc

@MikeM1987Gills: You will never see that again totally bizarre

@jeffafc: the gillingham players 😭😭

@Youngy316: What the hell is this? Surely for the sake of betting interests etc this needs looking at?

@Teds_Tours27: At one point a Gillingham and orient player were stood having a laugh with each other. And as the ball went towards another orient player, he just bent down and did his laces up 😆

 

@YoungHeartHM: Football, is there anything else in the world that runs through the whole gamut of emotions. Love it

@Mr_Tea82: So strange. I don’t think you will ever see anything like it again.

@PaulGardinerDJ: Only at Gillingham 😂

@MikeM1987Gills: It’s like playing on fifa and the other person has nipped to the toilet 😂

@lukebrookes8: Why is will from the inbetweeners commentating – that’s the real question

@tombullen87: Never seen anything like that before!

@JakeAGriff: Erm.. bringing the game into disrepute? No?

@joegibney15: As we join the game after an earlier floodlight failure (so other games have finished), Leyton Orient already know they are promoted and want to open the champagne, and Gillingham know they will be safe with a win. Hold on to your hats for 100mph football. Or maybe not…

@hbotterill19: 😂😂😂😂 can literally win the league on Saturday imagine knowing your that good you can just stand around for 10 mins 🤣

@tylerctfc: everyone moaning about this. let them crack on they’ve just won promotion ffs

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