Bridge over the River Cart.
Greenock has its Cartsdyke Station, but Paisley has the White Cart Water and, a short way out of town, the Black Cart.
It's Renfrewshire Cup time. This year's game takes place at St Mirren Park in scenic Paisley. Morton appear thanks to a 9 - 0 semi-final win over Viewfield Rovers of the Caledonian League Premier Division Tuesday. Viewfield Rovers are from Lochwinnoch, on the road from Largs to Paisley. St Mirren beat Port Glasgow Old Boys Union of the SAFL Premier 2 League 16 - 0 Wednesday in the other semi. That's a team record for St Mirren and Port Glasgow OBU both, I imagine. St Mirren are sitting on a seven year winning streak in the Renfrewshire Cup final.
Swimming away from the police just never works.
Whenever the game is Greenock versus Paisley the fan forums fill up with discussion of the social ills prevalent in the other town: teen pregnancy, methadone, smelly armpits and the like. This year the talk centres around the use of the turnstile as a money laundry. Despite all the trash talk, neither Greenock nor Paisley has made the latest UK top 100 crap towns list.
A Morton fan's advice to new hire Kabba-Modou Cham:
Cham is from The Gambia and last played in the Belgian Second Division. Morton have also signed Dougie Imrie, late of St Mirren, so today's match is the equal and opposite of Tidser's lap of honour two weeks ago. I'll do a proper rundown of the new roster when the league begins.
As of Monday, when I last checked, the First Division forum at Pie and Bovril has predicted that Morton will finish 2013-14 in the top half, and six of the experts there project a first place finish, though third place is the more popular forecast.
Today is the second leg of the preliminary round of the Scottish Challenge Cup. The top SFA-licensed club in last year's East of Scotland league, Spartans, are playing the top SFA-licensed club of last year's South of Scotland league, Threave Rovers, for the 32nd and final spot in this competition. The 31st spot went to the top SFA-licensed club of last year's Highland League, Formartine United. The other 30 places are filled by the clubs of what would have been this year's SFL. Due to the creation of the Lowland League, this preliminary round will not be needed next year. The first leg ended 4 - 2 in favour of Spartans. [Threave win, but Spartans advance on aggregate goals.]
A selection of results from the Europa League, second qualifying round, first leg, played Thursday:
Malmö FF 2 - 0 Hibs
Red Star Belgrade 2 - 0 ÍBV
KR 1 - 3 Standard Liège
Rosenborg 0 - 1 St. Johnstone
Breiðablik 0 - 0 Sturm Graz
And the Champions League, played Wednesday:
Cliftonville 0 - 3 Celtic
Ekranas 0 - 1 FH
Today in Japan, Matsumoto host Sapporo. [Consadole best the Ptarmigans 2 - 4.] Tomorrow in Iceland ÍA host ÍBV. [ÍA win 2 - 1.]
The Unthanks play Greenock this evening.
[Morton win! Score is 2 - 4, Morton goals by O'Brien, Cham (2) and Reece Hands who got the game winner.]
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