Every country still has a few football stadiums that get the punters of a certain vintage misty eyed for the nostalgia of when the game seemed a whole lot less commercially packaged. Sadly, with the vast majority of top sides everywhere these days having shiny, modern venues, you need to trickle down a tier or two to find those wonderful old gems. The two largely untouched grounds in Scotland that tick those boxes of proper old school venues both reside in the Scottish Championship these days, with Somerset Park, home of Ayr United, and Cappielow, home to Greenock Morton being the best examples in my country. Ironically Bill Barr, who ran Barr Construction, building many a new football stadium, was heavily involved with Ayr until his passing in 2019, but left behind a home venue for the Honest Men, as they are known, that truly is untouched by the modern hand.
It is the other “classic” venue and club that are my focus for this article, doon the Tail o’the Bank at Greenock, home to Morton and their magnificent old Cappielow ground. If you are driving out of Glasgow along the M8 with the River Clyde on your right, you are passing vast areas that were once festooned with shipyards. That theme continues as you come into Greenock, with the stadium being one of the first things you’ll come across, tucked in across a busy thoroughfare from what was once the Greenock docklands. They used to have access to the docks opposite Cappielow for match day parking. You know you’ve arrived in Greenock when you exit your car only to find you’ve inadvertently jammed your foot into a soggy gap between the old dock rail tracks, not my proudest moment, dealing with a wet foot during yet another drubbing here.
Every team has it’s bogey sides, but one that seemed to carry on across my divide of Meadowbank to Inverness was Morton. In the early ‘90’s Meadowbank led 2-0 in a Scottish Cup replay versus Ton as they are known, having escaped Cappielow with a rare draw on the Saturday. The next round draw had already taken place with the winner going to Celtic Park. That seemed an exciting prospect back in those days, particularly as Meadowbank had never played there, and alas we wouldn’t be on this occasion either, as Rowan Alexander, who single handedly was a regular scourge for us, took Morton through 3-2 that night. Inverness have fared only a little better, with Morton holding equally our worst ever loss at 6-0. However on a dreich Friday night ahead of a vital Scotland v England play off clash at Hampden in November 1999, it might only have been 5-1, but it was an evening that grew arms and legs courtesy of a friend and Reuters journalist who was in tow with us. It was an evening doubtlessly recanted on countless occasions across the dinner tables of Mexico City where he soon after departed for after his Edinburgh posting, with the name Morton even getting fudged in his mind into Clydeside!
I had also nipped down to Greenock to see if Forfar Athletic could win and set up a shot at promotion to the Premier League, yes you read that right! That was back at the end of April in 1986, alas they too came unstuck at Cappielow losing 2-0, and the dream died. In May 2003 the hopes of promotion for Morton and Peterhead, both in the bottom league at the time, all rested on a winner-takes-all last day clash. A crowd of around 8,500 turned up, a Scottish fourth tier record at the time, only blown out of the water by attendances at Ibrox when The Rangers had to start over. The Blue Toon fans had travelled south in huge numbers too, but they too would be vanquished 1-0, seeing Morton promoted as Champions much to the joy of the Greenock faithful, so you get the picture, Cappielow can be the theatre of broken dreams for the visitors. In truth that period in the basement of Scottish football was a rare blip, and a real low point for Morton.
I had originally planned to head for Cappielow to see my own side Inverness, and had it not been for a family hospitalisation, I would have been reporting on a momentous 6-1 away win, a day when all the angst of Cappielow ghosts of yesteryear could have been removed, but alas, of course I missed it. I decided to head across the country to Greenock for an Arbroath clash, as this visit had the potential to fit the narrative of the previous two paragraphs, and begs the question, if the fabulous Red Lichties fail in their bid for promotion, would it start to unravel here? More later.
Greenock is a town with a population of around 45,000 in a region now known as Inverclyde, but was once the county of Renfrewshire. The town clings to the slopes of the hills above it, undulating right down to the Clyde River, tucked in from the headland at the end of the river’s passage from Glasgow out to sea, with Gourock just around the corner, and Port Glasgow a near neighbour on the river side. An iconic shipyard crane sits just behind Cappielow, viewed best from the home terrace behind the goal, a nod to Greenock’s maritime past. The town was badly damaged during the war, as the relatively calm water at the Tail of the Bank saw the Home Fleet berthed here, making it an obvious target for enemy bombing. With the classic industries of the Clyde falling as demand dropped, unemployment became a serious issue in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s in particular, but a bit in step with how the football team has picked up in fortunes in recent times, Greenock reinvented itself and turned the corner. The town has found its new normal with tourism becoming an unexpected addition to the commercial roster, something that came along once the nearby Clydeport container site was developed into a docking area for cruise ships.
Morton were founded in 1874, and they are one of the oldest teams in Scotland. Greenock was only added 120 years later in 1994 by way of helping put the town on the map. The name Morton, (most still refer to them as just Morton), comes allegedly from Morton Terrace, a street near where the club first played, which makes sense. A lot of Scottish teams don’t carry the name of the town or city. With some of the bigger clubs most people will have an inkling where they come from, but those having a look at league tables from abroad in particular won’t necessarily be clued up on where St Johnstone, Ross County, Raith Rovers, East Fife or St Mirren come from. The last name here are in fact the arch rivals of Morton, from fellow Renfrewshire town of Paisley.
The club does have its name on the Scottish Cup, all the way back in 1922, when a 1-0 win over Rangers from a gem of a free kick won the day. Rather oddly, they had no time to celebrate as the team were whisked off right after the game to Hartlepool of all places to fulfil a promised friendly match! Do you think someone didn’t believe in Morton reaching the cup final and had filled the schedule with a friendly? Chapeau for going through with the friendly match too though, I can’t imagine such a scenario these days. So, five days on a jam-packed Cappielow welcomed their conquering heroes. I use the phrase “jam-packed” as a tipping of the cap to one of Morton’s greatest fans, a TV footballing legend for fans of a certain age in Scotland, the one and only Arthur Montford. He was a commentator and laterally Scotsport presenter, an affable chap with a very distinct style of commentating, some might say partisan as he shouted, “watch your back Dennis” as a Czech player closed in on Dennis Law at Hampden in 1973, the night Scotland finally got over the line and qualified once more for a World Cup Finals.
With this season being the Centenary of that great Scottish Cup success, the club are playing this campaign in a retro 1922 kit with no sponsor and old style badge. In troubled days as we nudge out of the pandemic, in a world where money is king, even more so at smaller clubs, where every penny is a prisoner just to survive, I salute such magnificent desire to properly celebrate that famous old Scottish Cup win.
Morton have played in two more finals in their history, neatly sprinkled throughout the decades, in 1948 and 1963. Oddly all three finals they’ve participated in were against Rangers, with revenge for the 1922 loss taken by the Glasgow giants in 1948, but only in extra-time after a replay. The crowds for those two matches were 132,629, and slightly more for the midweek replay 133,750, a British midweek crowd record at the time! Even a 5-0 drubbing in the 1963 League Cup Final to the Gers was watched by 106,000.
Finishing 6th in Division One in 1967/68 was good enough to get the club its only European expedition, qualifying for the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the forerunner of the UEFA Cup, where oddly a rule existed that only one team from a city or town could participate. Greenock being separate from Glasgow was okay, just don’t mention this competition to Clyde who failed to ever play in Europe courtesy of this quirk! As it transpired, there was no need to apply for passports, as Morton drew themselves an Anglo-Scottish encounter with Chelsea. They were thrashed at Stamford Bridge 5-0, but made a stirring game of it at Cappielow coming out a goal shy in a seven goal thriller.
I never think of Morton as a yo-yo club, but given they’ve visited all four tiers of the present structure, they do dot around a bit. Indeed, they hold the most promotions and relegations to the top flight by any club, presently sitting at 10 a piece, but the club hasn’t been in the Premier League since 1988, when Andy Ritchie, a club legend was at his peak, terrorised top flight defences with his artistry, especially from free kicks. Since those giddy days the club fell a long way, caught plumbing the depths of League Two, the fourth division essentially. The aforementioned final day clash with Peterhead was the start of the club’s rise, a 9th league title success came along that day, which has subsequently been rounded off at 10 when they won League One in 2014/15, also only on the last day. They have resided in the Championship ever since, as yet awaiting a campaign that would trouble the playoffs, let alone the automatic promotion place. However, after a poor start this season, but now under the guidance of new boss Dougie Imrie, something more solid is starting to be built, which could see a tilt at the top next season if they can build on the present form.
Arbroath were the visitors I headed down the water to watch. The Red Lichties, as Arbroath are known, have been a revelation this season, and they trotted out here at Cappielow with just 10 games to go sitting top of the Championship. It is a tremendous achievement for a part-time team, and most neutrals would love to see them get promoted. Remarkably I learned as I was driving to Greenock that IF Goteborg, who beat Dundee United to win the UEFA Cup in the ‘80’s were also a part-time team, an even more incredible achievement, the likes of which in European competition we will sadly never see again. Dick Campbell crossed the Cappielow pitch from the temporary pandemic required visitors’ changing room in the far corner, taking the applause and humorous banter in his stride. There has rarely been a bigger character in Scottish football, quite literally, but no one can question the man’s ability to get the best out of his players, and his tactical genius. Well that said, maybe I can, because the way he set up Arbroath for this game was heavily based on stifling the opposition, but why Dick? You are going for promotion. Perhaps it was a nod to how well Morton had been playing, and he wanted his team to stoutly defend. If that was the managerial pre-match mantra, the players set about their task resolutely and they rarely gave the more inventive Morton players a sight of goal. It was a disciplined display, and they took the 0-0 draw and ran. Given my previous tales of dreams falling apart at Cappielow, a point ultimately might be precious. Everyone else around them drew as well, seeing Arbroath staying top, job done.
While the game itself wasn’t great, being back at Cappielow was a joy, even more so being in the home end for the first ever time. There is room to roam, the views are so much more spectacular than being hemmed into the far reaches of the old stand, where the roof comes down so low you can’t really see if the sky is breaking up or even the trajectory of goalkeepers kick until it comes back into view. Cappielow has been home to the club since 1879, just five years after they started. While doubtlessly it has been enlarged and improved, the feeling is still of a very old school venue, with a present day capacity of 11,589. The shed opposite the stand is a thing of beauty, with the view from the home terrace behind the goal including that iconic shipyard crane. The Sinclair Street end is where it all happens, with the turnstiles for the main stand and home terracing. Visiting fans, when a smaller club at any rate are in town also enter the stand from this direction. The open to the elements benches at the away end, known as the Wee Dublin end, are only called upon for larger visiting fan bases. The street also houses the ticket office, a small portable Morton Shop on match days, and down on the corner by the main road is the Norseman pub, one of the closest to a football stadium anywhere I imagine. The fans of the club also have a tie up with AC Reggiana in Italy and PEC Zwolle in the Netherlands, although further investigation into how these random associations started is needed.
If you have never been to Cappielow, I would implore you to add it to your “must do” list especially if you like old school venues. This gem won’t let you down, and even if the football isn’t great as I witnessed, the glory of the ground will be the linger joy of your day.
Getting there
Trains regularly slip by quietly just behind the main stand, and the ground is easily accessed from the Cartsdyke train station, just a stop before Greenock if you are heading out from Glasgow Central. If you are travelling by car, once you see the Welcome to Greenock sign, the floodlights and the crane will come into view shortly afterwards. Sinclair Street is closed on match day so nearby side roads are the best place to park up and walk.
Football Adventures with James Rendall 