Friday, December 07, 2007

Football Stadia Tour 3: Cappielow

Sorry if I’m bit late in the week updating you on my footballing travels through the Irn Bru Division 1 grounds, but I’ve been a bit busy at work recently what with settling into my new position and everything. So here’s is my summery of my second trip of the season to the home of the Ton, Greenock Morton.


Location

Cappielow is in Greenock along the road that runs along the south bank of the River Clyde. As a seasider by birth it is closest I get to having the smells of home whilst watching my football.

Like our trip to Dunfermline the expected delays beyond Harthill on the M8 failed to materialise so yet again all our coaches ended up at the ground a lot earlier than anticipated. But this most have been welcome news to the Chippie at the NE corner of the stadium who did a roaring trade in his fine chips at other things to the hungry masses of Livi supporters.


The Ground

The Livi fans were one again seated in the Main Stand at Cappielow, which is the southern side of the stadium. Although unlike our Challenge Cup visit earlier in the season we were allowed less seats based on where the lines of segregation tape where placed.

Cappielow is a real throw back stadium maintaining a lot of old features and attributes missing from modern all-seater venues. The two ends are open to the elements. The Western End is the Wee Dublin End, and has unbacked seated formed out of the former terracing. The Eastern end is the Sinclair Street end where ardent Morton fans stand on the exposed terracing however on Saturday this was largely empty.

Opposite the Main Stand is the Cowshed, which is largely terraced but has a small section of seating at the front on either side of the halfway lines.

However, the toilets the away fans have to use are situated down the back of the Wee Dublin end and the gents leave a lot to be desired and I’ve been in toilets blocks in the Soviet Union when it still existed that were luxuriant in comparison.

The Atmosphere

Sadly although Morton have a large support for this level their support were not very vocal when we visited on Saturday. Although this may have been down to the way their team performed especially in the latter part of the match.

The Programme

Cost £2.50. Is made by the same printers as Livi’s MDP. However, the visiting team details although slightly altered from our first visit had some factual inaccuracies due to not being thoroughly checked from the first time the pen pictures were used. Sadly as if to appease the Old Firm supporters in their midst both Celtic and Rangers achievements in Europe featured in the opening pages.

Pie and Bovril

Not a static servery but a mobile van is located in the corner between the Main and Wee Dublin stands. Very reasonably priced £1 for a Bovril and a variety of freshly grilled options available as you would expect from such a van.


Cost

Admission £13 (excellent and only £4 for juniors)
Programme £2.50
(Bacon Butty) and Bovril £2.40 (Excellent)
Total £17.90

League Table of Cost
Morton £17.90
Dunfermline £21.50
Dundee £21.60

Match Report

I was confident going into this game on the sweep stake on the Coach over I had drawn the clubs two leading scorers Graham Dorrans and penalty taker Dave MacKay. So I was hoping for one of these two to clean up early so I could relax and enjoy the game. In the end Graham did score in the first ten minutes but only to equalise 3 minutes after Chris Miller got on the end of a ball send over from just in front of us from around the penalty spot. Dorrans a few minutes later made a run on the Morton goad and got a slight deflection to score from 20 yards.

For the first 20 minutes or so both teams were doing their best to take the lead. But with a lot of effort and little to so for it, but slowly Livi started a domination of the game that was only briefly broken when down Morton's left Ian Russell found space between youngster Keaghan Jacobs and Dave MacKay to allow he to swerve one in from all of 25 years that seemed to confuse Colin Stewart in goal by heading in at the last minute.

However, once again Livi weren't behing for long when Dave MacKay sent a cross into the box where Jason Kennedy made ammends for being ruled offside the last time he netted here in August by equalising again.

The second half was all one way. Livi's Manager Mark Proctor if he'd brought the kitchen sink would have trown it on as every else was being aimed at McGurn in the Morton goal.

On loan Colin McMenamin still looking for his first goal since his return to the Lions was clean through on a raking run, beat the keeper only to see his shot bounce off the outside of the post. Thomas 'Tam' Pesir scoarched one in from all 20 yeards which dipped enough to hit the topside of the crossbar only a moment later. One corner resulted in 4 or five stops from Morton keeper and defenders. A close range header from Dave Mackay and shots from Pesir and Dorrans were all somehow kept out by McGurn who surely should have been Morton's man of the match.

So we all came away from this trip sad not to have taken all three points. But if you'd asked us at the beginning we would have taken any result that earned us at least a point.

Final Score Morton 2 Livingston 2 (Morton: Millar 7, Russell 38. Livingston:
Graham Dorrans 10, Jason Kennedy 42 [ironic looking at today's other post])

Effect on the relative teams' positions. This week in Division one the top two teams beat the bottom two while the other six all managed to conjure up draws meaning the whole table stayed in exactly the same positions Morton 5th and Livi in 6th.

Next time it's off to Cumbernauld the latest home of Clyde.

Previous Stadia Dens Park, East End Park

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