Justin Edinburgh was a former professional football player who made close to 300 career appearances, including 213 league appearances for Tottenham Hotspur.
He also had a managerial career spanning 16 years, starting off as Player Manager at Billericay Town in 2003. He went on to manage seven other clubs, including a two-year spell at Leyton Orient which unfortunately ended due to his untimely death in 2019 at the age of 49 from a cardiac arrest.
In January 2020 Leyton Orient announced that the West Stand at The Breyer Group Stadium would be renamed ‘The Justin Edinburgh’ stand. This was officially commemorated the following day in a match against Newport County.
Turnaround
As a manager, Edinburgh is most fondly remembered, respected and recognised for his spell at Orient. In that time, he achieved legendary status at the club. In just one year he turned a team facing National League relegation into title contenders, and eventually went on to win the league in the 2018/19 season. Taking the O’s back into the Football League was a phenomenal achievement.
Through recently speaking to Orient’s CEO, Danny Macklin, I was able to understand more about Edinburgh and how loved he was, and also how pivotal he was to Leyton Orient’s success in his time with the club.
It was clear, through speaking to Macklin, the position the club was in at the time of Edinburgh’s appointment. He explained how, in his promotion speech after the final game of the title winning season, the former Spurs man looked back on how the club had “come to its lowest point” at the time of his arrival. Macklin was a part of the interview process, alongside the board and director of football, as Orient were looking for a new manager. He described how within seconds of seeing Edinburgh’s name on the list and interviewing him, “We knew he was 100% the right man for the job.”
“A Breath Of Fresh Air”
What became clear to me was that, as a manager, Edinburgh had exceptional man management skills. As Orient’s CEO emphasised “Predominantly he was a family man.” He also went on to explain that whether you were a player or member of staff he knew the names of your children. “If there was a problem at home with anyone he made sure that was the priority, very few managers do that.” This touch of care, and his consideration for the wellbeing of the club as a collective, must have been a breath of fresh air. Evidently this was noticed from the get go and would certainly have helped sow the seeds that allowed Orient to get out of danger.
As the conversation turned more towards Edinburgh’s passing, the impact of it and how the club dealt with it, it became clear to me that dealing with the loss of their beloved manager was very truly felt. This can, of course, only be evidence of Edinburgh’s character and the impact he had on the East London side.
“The Hardest Evening”
Perhaps the most astonishing thing I was told in relation to the untimely passing came on the day the club announced the news. Just one hour after Leyton Orient broke the news of Edinburgh’s death Macklin, and other members of staff, were at a National League event, during which he had to collect the manager of the year award on his manager’s behalf. He described how “that was certainly the hardest evening I’ve had in my working life.”
Macklin explained the difficulty in dealing with the situation as a club, saying “It was the hardest period we’ve ever had” and how, over a period of a couple of months, it became clear the void that Edinburgh had left behind: “We were all missing Justin… he was denied that opportunity to prove how much of a good manager he was.” These words made Justin’s death all the more poignant, denied the opportunity to manage the club he had guided back into the Football League after successfully stabilising the ship in his first season. Macklin made it clear to me the belief of the club is that they would have seen success under Edinburgh on their return to the Football League. “We know we would have succeeded in League 2 under Justin. I think we would have carried on that trajectory.”
“Carries Forward That Desire”
Macklin went on to discuss current Orient manager Ross Embleton. He heaped praise on Edinburgh’s former number two. Macklin told me that Ross has many of the credentials which his predecessor gave to the job. He went on to say: “Ross carries forward that torch of what Justin wanted, to build a successful Football League club that gets us competing in League 1.” It became clear to me Embleton was heavily influenced by his time working under Edinburgh, and shared similar coaching principals to the late great O’s boss. Macklin shared testament to this by explaining how: “He carries forward that desire that Justin had, to go out and win every game of football possible in a way that excites and entertains fans.”
It was powerful to me to discover that, even after a tragedy which shook the club to its core, bringing back Embleton, as interim and then head coach, allows the legacy of a club legend to continue to shine brightly, hopefully for the foreseeable future.
I wanted to finish the interview by asking Macklin about Orient’s ambitions going forward, and it is fair to say that the club has high hopes. When their current owners took over in 2017, they wanted to get the club into League 1 within six years, a schedule they are currently ahead of. Macklin pointed to the strength of the club’s squad as reason for Orient to be optimistic: “I genuinely believe we’ll finish in the right half of the table, I think we’ve got a squad that can compete with the best of them.”
