Turgott strike delights Hendon

The youngster had played under Hendon for the West Ham development side and made the short journey from Upton Park to Brisbane Road during the summer after Hendon had been appointed as Orient boss.

Jay Simpson had opened the scoring for the O's but it was the wonder strike from 21-year-old Turgott that had the East End crowd on their feet.

He met a right-wing cross from full-back Sean Clohessy, smashing a first-time volley past Stevenage keeper Chris Day from 18 yards before Ollie Palmer scored his first goal in an Orient shirt to give the O's a 3-0 win.

"I've worked a lot with Blair in the past and know his game and there's a lot more to come from him yet," Hendon said. "It was a stunning goal and he's got that in his locker and I've seen him score plenty of goals like that.

"We actually brought him on to try and supply goals but tonight he ended up popping up with one so that was a bit of a bonus."

Hendon and Stevenage boss Teddy Sheringham both worked at West Ham under Hammers boss Sam Allardyce, but were shown the exit door in the summer.

Now working in pastures new, it was Hendon who enjoyed bragging rights on this occasion - although his side were saved by the woodwork on two occasions in the deadlocked first-half.

"I'm delighted with the result," Hendon added. "I take a lot of satisfaction from the manner of our performance tonight and to be fair to Stevenage, they are the best team we've played so far. They made it very difficult for us in the first-half and it was a tough battle.

"But once we got through that first-half, we came out and played better ourselves with the ball and scored some superb goals. We are delighted."

Stevenage manager Teddy Sheringham could not mask his disappointment after the defeat which left his side still seeking their first win of the season.

"You could say there were positives to take from the game but we keep losing. We had chances to get ourselves in front and that's the disappointing thing," he said.

"But it's not about doing stuff for 45 or 55 minutes, it's about doing it throughout a 90-minute game. You have to be clued in throughout. It's tough to win football matches, you have to be very professional, you have to be very resilient and switched on for 90 minutes.

"You can't do it for 55 and think we are going to get away with it, it's not good enough. We were in good positions a lot of times today but didn't make it count.

"Their second goal was a fantastic strike but I thought we could play better and the third goal, well it wasn't great from our point of view, was it?

"We've got to work hard on getting accustomed to what it takes to win football matches."