Leyton Orient win Community Club of the Year Award

LEYTON ORIENT WIN COMMUNITY CLUB OF THE YEAR AT 2009 FOOTBALL LEAGUE AWARDS

Leyton Orient have won the CSI Sports Community Club of the Year Award for League 1 at the 2009 Football League Awards incorporating FourFourTwo’s Top 50 Football League Players.

The club received the award at a gala dinner at Grosvenor House, Park Lane on Sunday evening in front of more than 800 attendees from clubs, sponsors and the football industry.

Working in some of the most deprived areas of London, Leyton Orient’s Community Sports Programme’s core work takes place in six London boroughs with a total combined population of over 1.3 million people and delivers activity aimed at diverse communities aged 5 to 105! The programme runs over 200 sport and education sessions every week and provides more than 225,000 participation and engagement opportunities for people every year. Demonstrating unrivalled sustainability, the Programme has a significant turnover and 40 staff working across the projects. Leyton Orient’s stand out achievement in 2008 has been their social inclusion activity, encompassing initiatives such as Progressive Pathways, Kickz, Progressive Futures and Family Learning Days. Sitting at the core of their social inclusion activity is the Leyton Orient ‘Eid Cup’, which is an annual national sporting event aimed at breaking down barriers facing British Muslims in their local and national communities. It aims to highlight how different communities can be brought together using sports as a means of engagement.

Henry Winter, Telegraph journalist and judge in this category commented that “the Eid Cup is excellent. Everything about Orient’s schemes show that they are right at the heart of the community.”

Commenting on the 2009 Football League Awards, Football League Chairman, Lord Mawhinney, said: "Once again, these awards have given us the opportunity to honour those individuals whose commitment to the game, their club or local community goes beyond the call of duty.

"The fourth Football League Awards have been an enormous success, and I congratulate all the winners on their achievements."

To find out more about The Football League Awards, including all the photos and news from the evening, please visit www.footballleagueawards.com.