Greenock would never be the same without Morton

Few, if any, football teams have managed to produce names that have become synonymous with the club in the affectionate, almost mythical way that the great lovable villain, Hal Stewart, did, or the much-loved and admired honest injun' Allan McGraw.

Each typified what Morton were: a team with little money, but bags of cheek.

The late Stewart, former chairman, manager and general factotum at the club, was not a player in the football sense but he was one in other modes, a salesman extraordinaire, raconteur supreme and an administrator of remarkable vision. He was also, most of all, the most lovable of rascals.

McGraw was a goalscorer of immense talent, one who, had he lived in a different era, would have been a very rich man without the crippled knees that have left him in pain every day of his post-playing days.

He was player, assistant coach and manager in an association that lasted close to 37 years.

He would have to come into the category of one their finest players but there is plenty of competition, not least from one he admired greatly himself, Andy Ritchie, now Celtic chief scout, who was a footballer of exquisite talent and indolent nature yet somehow epitomised the wee team from the banks of the Clyde.

Their fans wanted to win, of course, but win or lose, they went home enthusing about Ritchie's audacious bending free kick,

or his 40-yard stunner, or his impudent flicks and dummies, or sometimes wondering if he had been on the park at all.

One of Andy's old gaffers, Mike Jackson, assistant to Benny Rooney in some of the club's happiest years, used to say that, even as a retired player with a dodgy hip, he left Ritchie behind in training runs.

''But he had marvellous feet.'' recalls Mike, ''Even in training, the things he could do with the ball were fantastic.''

Rooney and Jackson who formed a triumvirate with chairman Stewart that not only was successful within the parameters possible, but ran a club that gave credence to the old cliche about football with a smile on its face.

Former Celtic player Jackson, now a scout for Leeds United, is astonished as well as depressed at the possibility of his old club leaving Greenock. ''Morton and Greenock go together, it is as simple as that. The club belongs to Greenock.'' he says.

''Everybody knows the affection Benny and I have for the club. We had so much fun and fair success there in our time.

''When you think that we stayed for five years in the

Premier League and used to get average crowds of 10,000, it seems incredible what has

happened to the club. We had a fantastic supporters club then and they just loved it when it was a full house four times a year against the Old Firm.

''I was back at Cappielow recently when they met Celtic in the cup and it was like old times. The memories flooded back of those days when we had crowds like that.

''I still believe there is a place for football in Greenock. The potential is there for support. I just can't understand what has happened to the money brought in over the years when Benny and then Allan were the managers.''

Jackson is not enthusiastic about a move to share Firhill, even though he and Rooney were also in charge there at one time.

''Morton's fans are from Greenock and that is where the team has to play.''

Long before Rooney was in place behind that desk inside Cappielow, however, the club was producing some of the finest players in the land.

Billy Steel, who was to go on to great fame with Dundee and Scotland in particular, started out at the tail o' the bank, Jimmy Cowan, who many still believe was Scotland's greatest goalkeeper, Tommy Orr, Joe Jordan, Joe Harper and many, many more, wore the blue and white hoops.

Hal Stewart was bringing in foreigners before most of today's immigrants were born. Never one to miss a trick, Stewart had the foresight to sign the best of the Scandinavians who were seeking higher profiles in British football.

Players like Erik Sorensen, Kai Johansen, Henning Boel, Orjan Persson and Finn Dossing were just some of the names who arrived and fulfilled their ambitions to make it to a higher level.

Hal, who had been highly successful as a sales representatives - one of his specialities was Rocky Mount cigarettes, which became the the Co-op brand - scarcely spent a waking moment without thinking up some new gimmick, some plan that would bring in players or cash, or preferably, both.

However, he also knew how to enjoy life, and with Rooney and Jackson and then McGraw, the old stadium in Sinclair Street rocked with after-match laughter on many a Saturday night. The club's original five founders, who were also players, apparently wrote into the constitution that alcohol was to be banned.

Happily, by the time the Stewart regime were in force, the odd beer was allowed in the board room as well as the manager's office and the chairman made sure that largesse was dispensed.

When the club was promoted to the premier division one Wednesday night in 1978, he locked up many of his pals, including a hack or two, and

forbade then to leave until the party was over.

Then there was the occasion he signed a player and promised him the car of his choice. When the player went out to collect it, he discovered a rather battered old Triumph Herald. ''You didn't say you wanted a new one,'' said Hal.

It is said he also once offered Ritchie to Barcelona in a straight swop for Alan Simonsen who, at the time, was European Player of the Year. The Spaniards will never know what they missed.

Although he eventually sacked Benny and Mike, probably to save money, neither could feel aggrieved for very long. They had enjoyed too many memorable times.

His eye for an extra buck for the club was also illustrated to this observer once. At the time, as well as the Herald stint, I was doing some BBC radio broadcasting.

After a game at Cappielow, I asked Hal if I could interview on air a young player who had done exceptionally well. As ever, he was helpful, bringing out the player himself from the dressing room.

Once the interview was over, Hal came over. ''You'll remember the lad is an amateur, Ian,'' he said, ''so make sure the fee goes to the club to keep things right.''

Most folk of that time have a Hal tale to tell, or a Ritchie game to recall, or can remember the passion of the fans. Even in the days when the press phones were in the corridor underneath the stand, thus making it somewhat tricky to see what was going on, there was a lot of affection for Morton from people who had no connection with the town or club.

Tony Higgins, the secretary of the Players Union, also played for a short spell with Morton. King- sized Tony, who even in his playing days was not quite sylph-like, and Ritchie, built along similar lines, once shared the wing spots at Greenock. It is said that the flanks of the Cappielow pitch had sunk a foot and a half by the end of the game.

Higgins worries about the future of the club. ''It is really sad when you think that in the past this club has done so much to produce young players who have gone to greater things.''

As Jackson says, it would be a tragedy if the club that inspired all of this were to leave town. Morton will always be from Greenock, wherever they play.