Cappielow

Greenock Morton  1  Alloa Athletic  2 

Scottish Football League - Championship

Belper Town had just played North Ferriby United at home in the Northern Counties East League, it would have been April 1997, and the game had ended in a 1-1 draw.

Excitement was high though, the promotion bid was still on, and, no sooner had the game finished, myself and my mate Tim were being picked up by my future brother-in-law, Martin, and being driven to Scotland to have a few days away, crashing at his parents mini-mansion in Largs.

The journey up was largely fuelled by alcopops, but then the serious stuff started. Once at Tebay Services it was into the toilets to get changed, because we were having a little stop off on the way up, to go night clubbing in Carlisle!

Yes, that’s right, nightclubbing in Carlisle. The first and probably the last time, the less said, the better. Anyway, we left Carlisle and pretty soon two of us were in the land of nod, until, the car came to a juddering halt and I was woken by Martin…

“I’ve bought you to see something…” he whispered

Still drunk and half asleep, all I could see was a wall, I thought we were at a supermarket.

“Tesco’s? You’ve woken me up to tell me we’re at a Tesco’s?”

“No you dick, look again….”

Turns out just above the wall was the sign that gave it away, we were at Ibrox, the home of Rangers, he’d bought us to see the stadium, albeit at 3am. Great, we’d seen it, now can we go again?

By 5am we’d arrived in Largs and were in bed, it had been a long day, and we had more to follow.

The following day we went into Glasgow, courtesy of Martin’s wonderful parents, Jimmy and Grace. But on the way, with them knowing how much I liked my football, we went via Greenock and had a look at Cappielow Park, the home of Greenock Morton. I liked what I saw, and as always happens, Martin said that next time we went up, we’d have to do it when they’d got a game on, and we could go and watch it.

Typically then, what actually happens is nothing, we never did go back, but I could always remember the dockyard cranes, and of course the floodlights on the old stand roofs.

When those more travelled than me, especially when it comes to Scotland, talk about iconic football stadiums, or ‘porn’ as we like to term it, it’s very rare that you meet anyone who doesn’t put Cappielow Park in their top three favourite grounds. Untouched by modernism, it remains an old school classic, with memories of the Sixties and Seventies oozing from the terraces under the Cowshed.

So, when the gaffer turned round and asked if I would be prepared to have a longer spell than usual North of the border, the initial reaction was to check the fixtures, and guess what? On the Tuesday night, I had a choice of not just one top shelf stadium in the shape of Morton, but two, because the equally admired Ayr United were at home.

I chose Greenock Morton simply because it would be something of a fulfilment, plus, I’d got a Juniors game pencilled in for the following evening in Ayr itself, so I wanted to vary the journeys and locations up a little bit.

Cappielow Park is reached very easily from Glasgow Central, just jump on one of the regular trains to Gourock, which takes you out through Paisley and Port Glasgow, before passing the ground just prior to alighting at Cartsdyke. From the station the walk is five minutes, and before I knew it I’d splashed out twenty quid for a terrace ticket and was on my way to the critically acclaimed Norseman pub at the corner of the stadium.

A couple of swift ones later (£2.50 a pint), and it was time to enter the theatre. Cappielow does not disappoint, all entrances are behind the goal, and this takes you onto an uncovered terrace that is for the homes support. Moving round in a clockwise direction is a seated stand, with GMFC picked out in yellow seats. The old floodlights that attach to the roof of the stand are still in place.

Behind the opposite goal, known as the ‘Wee Dublin End’ that is an old terrace, which is bigger than the opposite end, but now full of bench seats. Behind this sits the iconic crane that adorns many of the pictures you see of the ground. Opposite the main stand is a covered terrace, the Cowshed, albeit at the very front are a couple of areas of seating. This is where the vociferous Morton support congregate, and as the game progressed it got a pretty lively in the ‘Cooshed’.

Cappielow Park is mesmeric, especially at this time of year as twilight falls over it, it looks to have barely changed in forty years, it was how it had been eulogised about, and more.

A crowd of just shy of 1,500, the second lowest of the season, had congregated to see if Morton could ease themselves away from relegation danger against fellow strugglers Alloa Athletic, the only part time team in the Scottish Championship.

The first half was pretty grim viewing, but in the second period it was the hosts who took the lead from a very debatable penalty. Greg Kite was the man who found the back of the net, but within three minutes we had parity when Andy Graham equalised for the men from Clackmannanshire.

Morton pressed, but seemed bereft of ideas as to how to penetrate a well organised back line, and when hesitancy at the back allowed Jack Hamilton to net an 80th minute winner for Alloa, it didn’t go down very well on the Cowshed.

What started out as chants of ‘Time to go, Time to go…’ aimed at manager Jonatan Johansson, turned into a more expletive ‘Gae tae f**k, Gae tae f**k, which for the uninitiated, is a derogatory Scottish term for, err, ‘Time to go’………..

So, boos and jeers greeted the final whistle, relegation to the First Division remains a possibility, but at the minute Partick Thistle and Falkirk Athletic would be favourites to go down, two equally big names heading into part time oblivion.

The train from Cartsdyke left at 10pm, and within half an hour we were back in the centre of Glasgow.

Martin was right, I did finally get to see a game at Cappielow, albeit over twenty years after it was initially suggested.

The wait was worth it, and not a Cumbrian night club in sight!