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The Morton Collapse of 03/04


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Just now, AyrshireTon said:

@Toby - the score was 1-1 in the Airdrie game when the referee got injured. He then awarded us a penalty for a pull on Greacen's jersey which very few in the ground saw (but I have to say I did at the time), and Weatherson took it. The other goal was a deflected free kick from Wlliams.

Aye, worth pointing out that for all the controversy over the fact a Morton fan in a Morton top emerged the Cowshed, ran across the pitch then took the place of a linesman, the two controversial decisions in awarding us the penalty and freekick came from the linesman who replaced the referee. The only decisions the Morton fan had to make were throw-ins and a borderline offside which got him pelters from the Cowshed as he gave it in Airdrie's favour :lol: Can't remember who the linesman was but it was David Somers who got injured.

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2 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

Aye, worth pointing out that for all the controversy over the fact a Morton fan in a Morton top emerged the Cowshed, ran across the pitch then took the place of a linesman, the two controversial decisions in awarding us the penalty and freekick came from the linesman who replaced the referee. The only decisions the Morton fan had to make were throw-ins and a borderline offside which got him pelters from the Cowshed as he gave it in Airdrie's favour :lol: Can't remember who the linesman was but it was David Somers who got injured.

Indeed. The seethe from the Airdrie end as he ran across to get changed out of his hoops was quite funny. He was actually told only to indicate when the ball left play, and the referee was to decide which way to give it. Didn't stop him enthusiastically awarding us a very obvious corner at one point. There was a good photo of him in the paper "shooshing" the Airdrie fans when he took up his position. :lol:

Fairly sure that at a fundraising do his Morton top was auctioned off and the Airdrie chairman won it.

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Indeed. The seethe from the Airdrie end as he ran across to get changed out of his hoops was quite funny. He was actually told only to indicate when the ball left play, and the referee was to decide which way to give it. Didn't stop him enthusiastically awarding us a very obvious corner at one point. There was a good photo of him in the paper "shooshing" the Airdrie fans when he took up his position. [emoji38]

Fairly sure that at a fundraising do his Morton top was auctioned off and the Airdrie chairman won it.

 

There was quite a bitter rivalry with Airdrie that season and the Section B always turned out in force in Greenock. Remember Morton got in bother for making Nazi references towards the Airdrie fans and when an apology was demanded the reply was something along the lines of "Morton will offer a full apology if Airdrie withdraw their troops from the Polish border." Might've been a fanzine but brilliant anyway. [emoji23]

 

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Great posts from toby and dunning. An immature squad who thought they were better than they were relying on the goals of weatherson and williams. A defence that lacked any real ability including the goaly.

There were apparently journos from most of the main papers sent down to inverclyde to dig the dirt and none could get a sniff of anything. Talking to one journalist who said it was bizarre that there was absolutely no evidence other than the originals whispers.

Prior to the Airdrie game, I played in a fans game against airdrie fans at lady octavia, a ten min walk from cappielow. The airdrie boys were getting tore into their kerryoots afterwards and seemed like a decent bunch. We chatted afterwards as we got changed. The referee was Chic Kavanagh who changed out of his ref kit and into his morton top. The airdrie fans joked, " I hope your no reffing this afternoon!"

Next time I saw these guy was  in their burberry and ralph lauren shirts getting held back from chic having made the change back into his refs gear for his warhollian 15 mins of fame.

As has been pointed out, you would see half the team in the pubs and night clubs every Saturday. They were guys who had been taken from part time  or youth set ups and paid well inexcess of others in the division.  No real wonder that they developed the Billy Bigbaws attitude when there was a chairman blowing smoke up their backsides on a regular basis.

This is the season that ultimately shaped Douglas Raes legacy. An attempt to go straight up by throwing money about. The next couple of seasons saw the same tactic with decent money being paid for the likes of Templeman, Iain Russell and Bobby Linn. Flawed managerial appointments and club management along the lines of a local rugby or cricket club.

 

 

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7 hours ago, Toby said:

What a season that was, absolutely bizarre from start to finish. I'd argue that the club still hasn't properly recovered from it.

After winning the title in May, it felt like the longest close season ever, such was the feeling of euphoria around the club. We started off with a three game midweek tour of the Highlands, and there must've been about 250 of us enjoying the delights of Buckie, Keith and Deveronvale. Keith especially was one of the fondest remembered awaydays for any Morton fan that was there. IIRC there was only one home friendly, against SPL Partick, which we drew 1-1 and acquitted ourselves quite well.

We then started with a Challenge Cup game at home to Arbroath which was a good indicator for what was ahead. With Alex Williams suspended (Queens fans will remember his red card in the shame game in the previous year's Challenge Cup tie at Palmerston), everyone and his granny lumped on Weatherson FGS. He scored after two minutes, we threw away a 3-2 lead in injury time, then went straight up the park and won it 4-3. The bookies downstairs from the Norseman ran out of cash to pay folk out after the game as there were queues down the street looking for their winnings.

The first league game was a cracker- a 3-1 win against Airdrie, who most saw as the biggest threat to any title ambitions. The main controversy about that game was the injury to the referee, resulting in a Morton fan coming from the Cowshed, in his Morton shirt and running across the park to get changed into a referee's kit and run the line, with the game delicately poised. Think we were 2-1 up at the time, but it could've been 1-1. We played Airdrie again three days later and lost 2-1 in the Challenge Cup, and their fortunes would be worth following for the rest of the season.

Our home form wasn't exactly amazing- we drew with Dumbarton and Hamilton before our first defeat, 3-1 to Berwick at Cappielow. But more often than not they were rattling goals in. We came from 2 down at Station Park to beat Forfar 3-2 and then beat Stenhousemuir 5-2 after a few scary moments before reaching our peak. In November we went to Airdrie and thumped them 6-1. Possibly one of the best exhibitions I've ever seen from a Morton team, we absolutely destroyed them.

It was downhill from then on though. We had a couple of turgid draws against Forfar and East Fife, and got out of jail at Hamilton in a midweek game. They hammered us that night, but Williams headed a last minute goal and we got away with a 2-1 win that we scarcely deserved. The cracks started to really show in a 6-4 win against Arbroath at Cappielow just before Christmas. Our defence was abysmal, but as we were scoring for fun we got away with it.

As well as the defence, I always felt the squad lacked maturity. There were too many gallus we guys that loved being local celebrities, but weren't prepared to accept the responsibility that went with it. Not living in Greenock, there were too many nights that I'd get picture messages from mates of players crashed out steaming on someone's couch after nights out.

It started to go wrong at new year, with a pretty timid 1-0 defeat at Dumbarton, and a hounding from Partick in the cup at Cappielow. Thereafter, form was patchy, but not abysmal. The goals were still going in, but not at the rate to negate our defensive difficulties, and the wins were turning into draws. McCormack signed Chris McLeod from Rangers to shore up the defence and he sold a goal 30 seconds into his debut, a 2-2 draw at home to Hamilton. His Morton career didn't get any better.

By the time Airdrie came to Cappielow in March, the tide was well and truly turning and they got away with a 1-1 draw. I'd have fancied us to have gone on and won it if we'd have got the three points that night. The next month was an inconsistent mix of results before going to Hamilton who were motoring right up behind us by that point. Pumped 6-1, and our goal was an injury time consolation. New Douglas Park doesn't hold too many happy memories, surely we'd never have to experience a worse result there in the future though.

The following week we beat Alloa 2-1, with a last minute winner from Paul Walker. You'd have thought we'd won the league that day, such were the celebrations. I can't remember much of the 2-0 defeat at Berwick the following week, other than sitting in the sunshine at the Ducket side half cut.

Dumbarton away a week later was the real shame game though. The stories had gathered pace that week and the atmosphere was really, really nasty that day. Of course there was a bigger Morton support at Dumbarton than at Berwick too. We got hammered 3-0, Derek Collins got sent off, there were fans fighting amongst themselves in the crowd and the players took a torrent of abuse on their way off. After the game, as they were getting on the bus, a mate of mine sarcastically said to Marco Maisnao "Is that you off to collect yer winnings, Marco?" Maisano lost the plot and went for him, resulting in players and fans trying to drag him off my mate on the car park in front of the press, who were loving it. Pretty sure that was the day Airdrie were confirmed as Champions.

It then became ridiculous when already relegated Stenhousemuir came to Cappielow and scudded us 4-1. Again, not a game I remember a lot about. We could've been promoted that day if results had gone our way, but the feeling of shock is my main memory of the day. Nobody could quite believe what was unfolding in front of them. Hamilton got a result that day, and all of a sudden, with one game to go, away to Champions Airdrie, on the day they collect the trophy, promotion was out of our hands for the first time all season.

We went to Airdrie, were soundly beaten 2-0 whilst Hamilton won 4-0 at Forfar and that was it. To rub salt into the wound we even dropped another place to fourth below Dumbarton. The comical moment of the season came at the final whistle when the Airdrie fans ran towards us celebrating and one guy ran out of the Morton end, booted one and tried his luck with his mates before getting lifted. Bizarrely though, the team got an applause from the fans and there were plenty of tears from some of the players at least. I stayed to watch Airdrie lift the trophy before getting a train back into Glasgow and getting ridiculously drunk.

We'll never know what actually happened, and I don't doubt they liked a punt, but I'd say what they were most guilty of was being a collection of wee fannies. Williams is still looked fondly upon by our support, if only he wasn't batsh!t crazy. The Maisanos were likeable lads. If you met them in a pub they'd be quick to say hello and get the beers in, but that wasn't what they were here for. Two of the players who were wee fannies were the only ones to actually go on and do something with their careers. Weatherson had a reasonable ten years at Morton, but openly admitted that if he was more professional he could've been more successful. Chris Millar screwed the nut and has had a good career. As for the rest of them? Who cares? Some stayed for a while, some were away quite sharp. Can't say I give any of them a second thought.

A mental time to support the club, and that for a club that has had more than it's share of ups and downs, but we probably fitted about 20 years worth of drama for some clubs into one season. It's little wonder we think so highly of the current squad when you think about some of the nutjobs that played for Morton.

Ill never forget the 4-1 game against stenhousemuir. One of my lowest moments as a Morton fan. Left the ground in complete shock that day. I'm sure the only reason I stayed to the end was to applaud the Hawke as it was his last game.

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What I remember from that season was a game at Bayview when Kenny Deuchar scored what turned out to be the winner. In injury time a Morton player went down injured in our box so the EF keeper threw the ball out of play so he could get treatment. The EF players stood back expecting to get the ball back but one of the Maisano brothers (other in stand) defied Cowboy & fired a shot just wide of target! Cue bedlam with all sorts of stuff both on & off the park! Cowboy apologised after game & interestingly in the next Morton attack the ref blew for a non-existent foul probably as retribution. No sign of lack of fighting spirit from Morton that day for sure! Stand bound Maisano was a complete dick after the game stomping around saying EF would still get relegated! He was right but a complete w****r!

 

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A couple of other points- during the run in to the third Division title win, McCormack appealed to fans to keep their eyes out for players that we felt could improve the squad. I spoke to him in the social club after the 1-0 win at East Fife that began to turn things our way and suggested signing Frazer Wright from Stranraer, who was out of contract that summer and was keen to go full time (he was an old school friend). McCormack gave me the sort of patter you'd expect from someone who wasn't interested but was being polite, "Yeah, we know all about Frazer, but we're looking at other options and who we sign will depend on what division we're in". Admittedly, Stranraer were relegated to the Third Division that year, but with the benefit of hindsight, and considering the career he went on to have, he'd have been an excellent signing.

Regarding the Nazi jibes at Airdrie, they appeared in the programme for the Scottish Cup drubbing by Partick. I'll spare the author the embarrassment of naming him, as he still posts on the Morton forum and is a decent guy, but he f*cked up big time with that one. It was an irreverent column, but not suitable for an official club publication;

"Walking through Greenock town centre ant Christmas time is a treacherous affair. Mothers fighting to the front of queues to buy the most expensive toys (most being young enough themselves to play with them). Fathers (if he is known) grumpy and hunch backed trail behind eager to escape the madness. Children scream, mothers scream at them for screaming, fathers get grumpier. Santa sits in his grotto politely as little ones pull at his beard. One passer by wears an obligatory "SANTA IS A MORTON FAN HAT". At least, Santa was a Morton fan until he was banned from Cappielow by Hugh Scott. Apparently Airdrie United are merchandising too to cash in on their very own celebrity fan and on their website it sems you can purchase both the brown and black S.S. Uniforms direct complete with military helmet*.

*not necessarily the views of the club"

The author, who presumably a volunteer was relieved of his duties, never to return although, as I said, he still posts on our forum and is involved in the Community Trust. His career and a columnist reached an abrupt and there unfortunately though.

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30 minutes ago, Toby said:

Apparently Airdrie United are merchandising too to cash in on their very own celebrity fan and on their website it sems you can purchase both the brown and black S.S. Uniforms direct complete with military helmet*.

*not necessarily the views of the club.

Might be the single greatest disclaimer in the history of the English language.

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A couple of other points- during the run in to the third Division title win, McCormack appealed to fans to keep their eyes out for players that we felt could improve the squad. I spoke to him in the social club after the 1-0 win at East Fife that began to turn things our way and suggested signing Frazer Wright from Stranraer, who was out of contract that summer and was keen to go full time (he was an old school friend). McCormack gave me the sort of patter you'd expect from someone who wasn't interested but was being polite, "Yeah, we know all about Frazer, but we're looking at other options and who we sign will depend on what division we're in". Admittedly, Stranraer were relegated to the Third Division that year, but with the benefit of hindsight, and considering the career he went on to have, he'd have been an excellent signing.
Regarding the Nazi jibes at Airdrie, they appeared in the programme for the Scottish Cup drubbing by Partick. I'll spare the author the embarrassment of naming him, as he still posts on the Morton forum and is a decent guy, but he f*cked up big time with that one. It was an irreverent column, but not suitable for an official club publication;
"Walking through Greenock town centre ant Christmas time is a treacherous affair. Mothers fighting to the front of queues to buy the most expensive toys (most being young enough themselves to play with them). Fathers (if he is known) grumpy and hunch backed trail behind eager to escape the madness. Children scream, mothers scream at them for screaming, fathers get grumpier. Santa sits in his grotto politely as little ones pull at his beard. One passer by wears an obligatory "SANTA IS A MORTON FAN HAT". At least, Santa was a Morton fan until he was banned from Cappielow by Hugh Scott. Apparently Airdrie United are merchandising too to cash in on their very own celebrity fan and on their website it sems you can purchase both the brown and black S.S. Uniforms direct complete with military helmet*.
*not necessarily the views of the club"
The author, who presumably a volunteer was relieved of his duties, never to return although, as I said, he still posts on our forum and is involved in the Community Trust. His career and a columnist reached an abrupt and there unfortunately though.


That was it. You remember the "Polish border" response and where that appeared?
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7 minutes ago, LargsTON said:

 


That was it. You remember the "Polish border" response and where that appeared?

 

Had a look in later programmes, but that was his last column in the Partick one, unsurprisingly. There's no mention of the Polish border later in the article either. Best bet would be to ask "the author" on the Morton board. I dare say he'd probably tell you.

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Excellent posts by Toby and Dunning.

Some extra things I'd add/expand upon:

The "promotion bounce" effect was massive.   Whilst we'd had a brilliant run at the end of the previous season, and finished up as Champions on the last day, we hadn't been that good.   Going into the final day of the season we could've finished anywhere from first to fourth.   IIRC Bookies had us as fourth favourites for the title the following year.    But we (fans and players alike) were loaded with confidence going into the season and it lasted for the first-half of the season.    It's also worth remembering the East Fife (who had been promoted along with us) also had a great start and remained in second place till late-November before ending up relegated.

For me the Cup game  against Partick was a big turning point psychologically.   Despite us being third tier and Thistle being SPL, we were practically considered favourites after the draw was made: the media almost had us as a stick-on for the "upset".   We went into the game full of confidence, and we got schooled.   We didn't necessarily play badly, but the gulf in class was so evident.   Afterwards I think we all still believed we were a good team, and certainly good enough to maintain our lead in the division, but no-one could buy into the hype to anywhere near the same extent anymore and we lost that extra edge of confidence that had often been making the difference up to then.   

We also had the misfortune of that season being the first to introduce a transfer window.   Unfortunately those in charge did not read the signs until the window had closed and it was too late to do anything.   We also made the mistake of counting our chickens: trying to sign Paul Fenwick with an eye to the following season, rather than focusing on getting over the line.  Our competition (especially Airdrie) strengthened; we signed Chris McLeod.

Our team had several players who were top-class in certain elements of their game, but very weak in others.    With the exception of Weatherson, we lacked any decent all-rounders (we also lacked experience).    But we had these fantastic synergies between certain players.   The most obvious example is the John Maisano through ball to Williams.   Maisano was one of those players who was always looking for the "worldy" pass, Williams was excellent peeling off the last man and scoring 1v1; it was the real-life equivalent of the "Y" button through-ball on early versions of PES or the chipped through-ball in FIFA.  So long as the opposition allowed Maisona time and space to find Williams, and allowed Williams to get in behind, we were going to score.   Start forcing Maisano to go to Plan B or Williams to play with his back to goal and they were both lost.

The classic though were the few games we played with Paul Walker (brilliant dribbler, terrible crosser) as our right-winger and Chris Millar (could not go by a player, but an excellent crosser) at right wing-back.  Tremendous combination going forward but (literally) nothing behind them defensively.   This is the sort of thing we were able to get away with in the first half of that season, when teams were running scared of us.   Once the opposition started to smell blood/sense weakness (combined with our own loss of confidence) they started to exploit our many weaknesses.

We also had freakish things happening like Stewart Greacen scoring (six?) goals from central defence, the final one being an overhead bicycle kick.   I'm exaggerating but he must have scored about 50% of this career goals over the course of about 10 games that season.   IIRC Chris Millar was also into double-figures from midfield by the half-way point.

As others have remarked, the gambling conspiracy has always had the question of why Airdrie?   Dunning has already pointed out that Airdrie were off the pace when we were at our height, but there's also the issue of our penultimate game against Airdrie: a six-pointer and the obvious game to throw if the players had money on Airdrie.   Instead they put in a decent performance, with John Maisano scoring a cracking free-kick, and drew 1-1.

 

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1 hour ago, Toby said:

"Walking through Greenock town centre ant Christmas time is a treacherous affair. Mothers fighting to the front of queues to buy the most expensive toys (most being young enough themselves to play with them). Fathers (if he is known) grumpy and hunch backed trail behind eager to escape the madness. Children scream, mothers scream at them for screaming, fathers get grumpier. Santa sits in his grotto politely as little ones pull at his beard. One passer by wears an obligatory "SANTA IS A MORTON FAN HAT". At least, Santa was a Morton fan until he was banned from Cappielow by Hugh Scott. Apparently Airdrie United are merchandising too to cash in on their very own celebrity fan and on their website it sems you can purchase both the brown and black S.S. Uniforms direct complete with military helmet*.

*not necessarily the views of the club"

Ooft.

Was this before or after Airdrie put a picture of German soldiers on their Remembrance Day programme cover?

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Just read the Nutmeg article.

If it really all was a daft rumour (and the consensus says just that ) then you've got to feel bad for guys like Weatherson.  

Looked at rationally as a series of games, it really does simply sound like a free scoring team with a suspect defence, suffered some injuries and the goals dried up, affecting confidence.

It's a great story though.

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