Commercial Activity

[AyrshireTon]

The audio was posted by someone on the old Morton forum around 20 years ago (back when we couldn't Quote or anything).

It's a bit crackly - be interested to see if someone has a better quality recording.

 

[AyrshireTon]

And the B side.

 

[RossMcC1874]

Brilliant I remember my grampas old friend having a cassette player in his car years ago and I remember him playing this song.

Brings back some good memories. Played it to the missus and started singing along safe to say she wasn't a fan. 

[The Bewilderedbeast]

There was a CD produced during the Save the Ton campaign with all four songs, plus newer one written around 1997, on it.

There must be a few still kicking around.

 

[The Bewilderedbeast]

This is my favourite 

 

 

[AyrshireTon]

1 hour ago, The Bewilderedbeast said:

There was a CD produced during the Save the Ton campaign with all four songs, plus newer one written around 1997, on it.

There must be a few still kicking around.

 

I remember the late 90s one being on the news or Scotsport extra time with Chick Young covering the story. Vaguely recall the lyrics mentioning Ritchie and Benny Rooney but have not heard it since.

When I got the Hector Nicol ones (and the "Morton for the Top" ones), it was around this time that someone posted the Greenock Accordion Band's recording of "The Green Oak Tree". The B-side is an odd number called "Side by Side in Inverclyde".

[Deego]

4 hours ago, AyrshireTon said:

And the B side.

 

What a tune.

[Greacen2000]

Christmas Pop UP Shop & Signing Night takes place this evening! - Greenock Morton FC

Nice to see the club putting this sort of thing on - it's a shame it only seems to have been promoted on the day of the event (unless I missed an earlier announcement).  Hopefully it is well attended and makes the club a few extra bob from Christmas presents.  Sadly I wont be able to make it down as I live out of town and need more than a days notice

[Stevie Aitken's Love Child]

56 minutes ago, Greacen2000 said:

Christmas Pop UP Shop & Signing Night takes place this evening! - Greenock Morton FC

Nice to see the club putting this sort of thing on - it's a shame it only seems to have been promoted on the day of the event (unless I missed an earlier announcement).  Hopefully it is well attended and makes the club a few extra bob from Christmas presents.  Sadly I wont be able to make it down as I live out of town and need more than a days notice

I'm sure it was promoted a few weeks back, but hasn't been pushed much since then, other than in the last few days. 

[Roger McQueen]

Surely we should be considering bringing the club shop in house and making it an online entity and maybe have some sort of "pop up" at each home game? Unless Smiths don't take a penny and help the club out with retail space then, fair enough, but surely we could run our own online shop? 

[irnbru]

29 minutes ago, Roger McQueen said:

Surely we should be considering bringing the club shop in house and making it an online entity and maybe have some sort of "pop up" at each home game? Unless Smiths don't take a penny and help the club out with retail space then, fair enough, but surely we could run our own online shop? 

Great idea. Could get a van outside. 

[Greacen2000]

20 hours ago, Roger McQueen said:

Surely we should be considering bringing the club shop in house and making it an online entity and maybe have some sort of "pop up" at each home game? Unless Smiths don't take a penny and help the club out with retail space then, fair enough, but surely we could run our own online shop? 

Based on the complete arse the clubs leadership are currently making of everything else both on & off the park, there’s nothing to suggest that bringing retail in house would be any sort of an improvement.

on the contrary, at this stage I would have more confidence in doing the opposite by handing over day-to-day running of the club to Smiths and entrusting them to hire a new manager etc.

In all seriousness though - I am all for us having a partnership with a local business.  They give us a prominent window display and town centre footfall - something that would come at considerable cost if we tried to do it ourselves(and that’s before we even start to look at staffing costs etc).

when it comes to the online element of the store, I think smiths do a pretty good job of this.  Yes by bringing it in house we could improve the margin we make, but only if we actually do a good job of running the thing.  Based on the evidence of the clubs official website I have zero faith that we would do half as good a job as smiths do. 

 

[vikingTON]

On 12/20/2025 at 6:42 PM, Roger McQueen said:

Surely we should be considering bringing the club shop in house and making it an online entity and maybe have some sort of "pop up" at each home game? Unless Smiths don't take a penny and help the club out with retail space then, fair enough, but surely we could run our own online shop? 

Show us your workings please. 

[vikingTON]

8 hours ago, Greacen2000 said:

Based on the complete arse the clubs leadership are currently making of everything else both on & off the park, there’s nothing to suggest that bringing retail in house would be any sort of an improvement.

on the contrary, at this stage I would have more confidence in doing the opposite by handing over day-to-day running of the club to Smiths and entrusting them to hire a new manager etc.

In all seriousness though - I am all for us having a partnership with a local business.  They give us a prominent window display and town centre footfall - something that would come at considerable cost if we tried to do it ourselves(and that’s before we even start to look at staffing costs etc).

when it comes to the online element of the store, I think smiths do a pretty good job of this.  Yes by bringing it in house we could improve the margin we make, but only if we actually do a good job of running the thing.  Based on the evidence of the clubs official website I have zero faith that we would do half as good a job as smiths do. 

 

Also an employee owned local business, which is therefore closer to the community right now than the bloated mess that GMFC represents. Even if GMFC were to magically find a 10% efficiency over working with Smiths, would that be justifiable? I don't think that that it would. Chucking a local business under the bus for the sake of yourself is not a good long term look for a community owned football club. Goodwill cuts both ways. 

Edited December 21, 2025 by vikingTON

[DunTon]

Interestingly, all traces of the Morton Matchday Programme EP6 have been deleted from YouTube and Twitter

Annoying because it was the episode with the Brian Bonar interview (If I remember correctly) and I wanted to rewatch it

[dunning1874]

2 hours ago, DunTon said:

Interestingly, all traces of the Morton Matchday Programme EP6 have been deleted from YouTube and Twitter

Annoying because it was the episode with the Brian Bonar interview (If I remember correctly) and I wanted to rewatch it

That's alarming. If there's some negative news coming about Dalrada with the deal to be reviewed in January (no idea if that's the case but it's natural to speculate when something like this happens) the club's response shouldn't be to scour through their official channels to remove anything with comments from Brian Bonar so fans can't check what he's previously said.

There are so many indications that the club have learned nothing from what happened in the summer. There is an institutional fear/hatred of transparency, the first instinct in every scenario is to obfuscate, cover up and hide; for the GMFC board, the worst thing that can possibly happen is the fans knowing anything about what's going on at the club.

We saw it in the summer with covering up the embargo then taking days to make a statement when everyone knew something was happening with Dalrada but not what, allowing rumours and ITK whispers to spread in the vacuum caused by their silence. We saw it again once the deal was put to a vote with refusing to release the text of the deal, followed by Brian Bonar confirming at the public meeting that he had no issue with it being released in full and unredacted which then happened shortly before the vote closed. GMFC had simply point blank said no to MCT without asking him previously, hiding behind commercial sensitivity when that wasn't an issue.

We've seen it since in not addressing failing to replace the Finance Director or General Manager despite saying they were working on these things and would provide updates, in the refusal to explain what Billy Davies' role was when he first joined and in the deliberately confusing statement last week about the current managerial situation that has left fans with no idea who's actually taking the team on matchdays, presumably because the club were scared of the backlash they'd get for explicitly saying Davies is in charge after how poor his caretaker spell was.

We're seeing it again now in the deletion of official content with no explanation because fans might learn something from it that could be inconvenient to the board.

[Jani Inenuot]

The video has been marked as private, which can be verified by looking at the broken embed on the Morton website (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hassHbhYkUU).

Not that there's a meaningful distinction between deleting it and making it private - both look like attempts to remove material that one might wish to reference.

Edited December 22, 2025 by Jani Inenuot

[GiGi]

Whatever the reason it's been hidden, they should have it back up minus whatever they're worried about, unless it is something Bonar had said which is the problem .

Streisand effect will make it a bigger deal than it has to be. 

[Greacen2000]

I was able to get a transcript from an archived snapshot of the videos metadata.  The speech recognition is pretty ropey so it’s a tough read but the whole thing can be viewed here - https://filmot.com/sidebyside/hassHbhYkUU/auto.en/auto.en/English+(auto-generated)/English+(auto-generated)/Morton+Matchday+Programme+|+EP+6+|+Partick+Thistle+(H)/‘TonTV

 

for your convenience I’ve had a go at tidying up the section with the interview between Gareth & Brian

GR - Brian, first of all, thank you so much for for joining us for this interview today. I suppose how's it feel to be back over in Scotland and coming along to a Morton game?

BB - Just say that it's nothing like San Diego. When I left San Diego, it was 78°, beautiful sunshine, and uh you know what it's like here. 

GR - Dalrada of course has played such an important part of Morton's journey in recent years.  What does the the partnership mean to you personally?

BB - It's kind of selfish. Um it's my way of giving back. Uh I came from humble beginnings in Beville Street just above Cappielow and uh I used to sneak into the stadium cuz my father couldn't afford a ticket. So this is maybe me repaying all the free games I had.

GR - And one thing that your company and the club share of course is that community value. I suppose how does that connect with a community owned club like Morton?

BB - It it's quite simple. I mean I think the thing that's struggled with Morton and MCT and the charity organization has been they all seem to work in separate silos. And I think for the first time I can honestly feel that's changed and it was a long time coming but I think we're on the cusp of that change. We’ve got to harness it. We’ve got to work together and we’ve got to drive forward and by doing that we'll fulfill anybody's dreams. 

GR - And you mentioned there a period of stability recently looking to to move forward and and really grow from a a business leaders perspective. What exactly are you excited about most for Mortons next chapter?

BB - I want to see us in the Premier League. Uh I mean Billy Davis coming here to support Doogie Imrie is a bit like the old bull and the young bull. Dougie out there the young bull and Billy's the old bull. And it it's a balance that's we're very very fortunate to have. And I think by harnessing that, getting the right support behind them from all of the three organizations, the club board, the MCT, and the the charitable board, it'll work wonders if it can be done.

GR - You of course run companies, successful companies across different areas. What parallels do you see between that and and the football aspect?

BB - The only difference between that and the football aspect is that I don't have a fan base with the emotions that rightly and deserve to be heard and that's a bit of a distraction from a business point of view.  So it's striking that balance is keeping the fans happy and at the same time running the business of the club and that's a challenge but it's a challenge it's easy to overcome. 

GR - And just finally as well have to ask of course here at the game today against airdrie what's the the one thing you love most about coming to a Morton match day ?

BB - to see them win and I think it's been unfortunate over the last number of games and not not to cry over spilled milk but you know there's been some bad refereeing decisions I think acknowledged even by the Scottish Football Association but nobody can undo that. So, what we got to do is move forward, put all that behind us, and go score some goals and win the damn game.

GR - Well, Brian, thank you for sitting down today and having a chat with us and again, thank you for the the support that the the company provides the the club and the community as well.

BB - Look forward to doing it for a long time.

Edited December 23, 2025 by Greacen2000

[DunTon]

 

4 hours ago, Greacen2000 said:

I was able to get a transcript from an archived snapshot of the videos metadata.  The speech recognition is pretty ropey so it’s a tough read but the whole thing can be viewed here - https://filmot.com/sidebyside/hassHbhYkUU/auto.en/auto.en/English+(auto-generated)/English+(auto-generated)/Morton+Matchday+Programme+|+EP+6+|+Partick+Thistle+(H)/‘TonTV

Thanks for going to the trouble of getting that transcript, much appreciated

 

I think it's odd that it's been deleted. I checked the rest of the transcript, there were no sections sponsored by any outside companies (this was pushed in the first couple of eps but dropped because I assume nobody put their names forward to sponsor). The other sections were just the standard pre-match interviews, highlights and an interview with the SLOs introducing themselves. I also don't remember any editing errors in the show either. The BB interview is also pretty uncontroversial, only thing I could point to would be people taking the "bit of a distraction" comment the wrong way.

 

Now that I'm actually suspicious about it it'll probably come to nothing and will be up tomorrow