Toby

Rangers confirm their League Cup quarter final with Dundee on the 21st September will be at Ibrox. I’ll be interested to see if this means a change of plan for our game at Queen’s Park on the 14th.

£16 for Hamilton v Dundee United B tonight. Christ alive.

I certainly hate Falkirk. But I hate Liverpool and don’t consider them to be Morton’s rivals. Let’s be honest, for all the traditional rivalry is with St. Mirren and is massively diluted by the Renfrewshire Cup, pre-season friendlies and them swanning off into the sunset, they’re much more likeable than both Falkirk and Partick. Not that St. Mirren are terribly likeable.

I know there’s still the travel involved in going to and from games, but it is significantly north of Bury. It’ll be much less of a commute for training.

Efe Ambrose signs for Workington.

I’m a pedantic prick, so I can’t resist, sorry. Pretty sure Moore’s last game in charge was the 5-1 home defeat by Livingston.

Would rather we signed Brian Graham than Bachirou to be honest. At least Graham fulfilled the terms of his contract and admitted afterwards that he fucking hates us instead of giving it the #mortonfamily pish on Twitter after treating his employers like shite. Ayr are welcome to him as far as I’m concerned.

22nd March 2011. We won 2-0 there in front of a sparse midweek crowd. The local yokels outside the ground tanned the green machine as we were pulling out of the car park with a routine three points. Held a grudge ever since and their relegation to the Lowland League, never to return was probably the best non-Morton related event I’ve ever witnessed with my own eyes in the history of Scottish club football. Looking forward to them going to the East of Scotland Premier in the next few years, as they go through a long and painful decline that ultimately leads to death. Oh, and they also voted for the B Teams.

Agreed. I can’t stand Cowdenbeath. Shouldn’t even be in this tournament in the first place, either. A horrible wee club.

There’s an irony in Paul trying to differentiate between “an over-achieved non-league outfit who are past their peak” and fucking Inverness.

Maybe he should have. But at the same time, a message about a one-off issue (we’ll wait and see if it is a one off issue) being stuck on the end of a fairly generic statement about procedures/codes of conduct, most of which is second nature to regular fans is going to slip under the radar for many, as their attention drifts. If the club want to relay information that could prevent complaints because of the nature of the problem, they could make that particular issue far more prominent. It’s one thing mentioning an issue, it’s another alerting people to it.

Think it was just before 3.20 I went to the pie stall and was greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and “nothing until half time” response, but I didn’t pursue and explanation. I was with my pal’s daughter’s boyfriend, who was a Brentford fan visiting Cappielow for the first time. I’d sold him on the merits of a kebab pie but no, nothing. I then asked for a Coke for my pal who was still in the Cowshed, but they only had Diet Coke or Irn Bru. I just thanked them and walked away. Having worked in catering until only a few years ago, there was nothing our bosses hated more than seeing a customer walking away saying “Nah, you’re alright”, but it looks as though Morton saw quite a lot of that. Really, really poor. All this while Partick, St. Mirren and Falkirk, all of whom have contracts with Pie Sports, are promoting special menus week on week. While I wouldn’t give these clubs a penny more than I have to, some of my mates spoke very highly of what they had at Firhill last week. The lad from London however was very impressed with Cappielow, as was a boy from Braintree I spoke to at the Alloa game. It’s clearly got its charms, and the Cowshed fans group have done a good job of decorating it, but there strikes me as a complete lack of commitment from the club- we’re heading down the slippery slope of not doing the basics that besmirched the Rae era. No programmes on the first day, with no indication as to why, or whether they’ll be back, a total clusterfuck of a catering operation, turnstile software packing in, kids who received flags from the club not allowed to bring them in while other kids are. Not a great charge sheet. I also noted around 2pm when I went to the merchandise stall that kids were able to walk into the ground unsupervised by adults. I don’t object to this at all, quite the opposite in fact. But is this a policy that has been communicated or is consistently followed? I’ve not heard whether or not the weans are now allowed in without adult supervision. Are other kids being told they can’t go in at busier times? And of course, the age old problem that never seems to far away from Cappielow. Could anybody verify the identity of the steward who is hiding their identity from a Hamilton fan in order to prevent him from complaining? Shouldn’t take a Rocket Scientist. Didn’t the club release a statement on Friday telling us that stewards are there to help fans? Why the complete lack of transparency? Not that it would make a great deal of difference given that this steward is a protected species and the club don’t really do answering emails anyway, but along with a whole host of new problems, we’ve still got the old ones, which shouldn’t be ignored either. On the discussion about Dale the other week, I said I reckon the honeymoon is over, which was probably quite diplomatic. Things really have to improve.

Indirectly related to the Championship as it will affect the size of the sponsorship deal, and prize money as a result, but as I awoke from my slumber this morning, I got thinking about the Rangers and SPFL dispute over the cinch deal a couple of years back (I’m interesting like that). Given that they cited a conflict of interest between the league’s deal with cinch and their own contract with Parks of Hamilton, it crossed my mind that there would be parallels between the new deal with William Hill and their shirt sponsorship deal with Unibet/32 Red. So I looked at a couple of photos from the opening day of the season. It’s a bit vague, but you’ll note from the above that the logo on the Rangers sleeve patch is the SPFL logo. Yet their pals across the city, also sponsored by a gambling company (Dafabet) carry the William Hill logo. Picking another club at random, the Motherwell shirt carries the William Hill logo. And given that this is a Morton forum, to keep it relevant to ourselves, as does the Morton shirt. This will come across as Rangers-bashing, and it is to an extent, but it raises a number of questions: Will there be no William Hill branding at a regulated SPFL match at Hampden today, as was the case with Rangers home matches and cinch branding? Will this be the case at Hampden/Ibrox for the duration of the contract? How, after the cinch fiasco can the SPFL possibly enter into a sponsorship deal that excludes one of its member clubs having been through that controversy in the past? Given that Celtic seem to be on board with the league, a simple vote to prevent a recurrence of the cinch episode should have provided a 41-1 majority (11-12 in the case of an exclusively Premiership vote) in changing the rules to force clubs to get on board with the league body. Was any such vote cast to prevent a recurrence? I understand that Rangers don’t have many friends in Scottish football. What do they achieve from this? Is it a GIRUY to the rest of the clubs? As in, we’re so big, that we’ll use our own sponsorship deals to sabotage the little people? UEFA have a sponsorship deal with Enterprise Rent-A-Car and gambling firm Bwin. Do Rangers refuse to promote these brands in European ties, or are UEFA too powerful and the contracts too lucrative? We don’t like to admit it, but a sponsorship deal with Rangers on board is much more lucrative than one without them. How much has the value of this deal been reduced by Rangers’ apparent refusal to get on board? Why would they, or any other club be allowed not to get on board? Were a lower profile club, such as Morton to refuse to promote William Hill, what sanctions would they face? This is of course a hypothetical question as the William Hill money is a much bigger part of Morton’s budget, and probably a drop in the ocean to Rangers. Will there be any way of fixing this mess, or is it the way Scottish football’s going to be forever, with one club acting as a law unto themselves and citing minor conflicts of interest to themselves over the greater good of the game? We often hear Rangers and Celtic fans complaining about Scottish football “hating itself to death” when clubs would rather have empty seats than their fans in their grounds. Is this a similar instance? While William Hill may accept the terms of the deal, have any other companies been put off by this? Rangers, I’d imagine have companies from many markets sponsoring them so a conflict of interest is almost unavoidable. How much is being lost to Scottish football because of the stance of one club? Are the smaller clubs too scared to challenge this and allowing the tail to wag the dog? Am I just getting worked up about nothing, or is it a relevant concern?

If we’re doing it in chronological order, it’ll probably be second/third in the queue behind the guy “allegedly” calling Todorov a refugee, alongside the steward “allegedly “saying Reynolds is paid with fruit and before the kid “allegedly” being attacked outside Firhill at the weekend. I wouldn’t hold your breath.

I think Alibi’s right. What other club above Morton in the food chain has such delusions of grandeur?