Plenty of Nothing

Red Herring

The kipper, or smoked herring, is held to have been invented in Gourock in 1688, though the etymological evidence cries Inverkip.

Raith Rovers visit Cappielow. Morton did not lose three league games in a row last season, but they can hit that mark today. Raith have a win, a loss and a draw and a 0 GD.

The Championship so far: Morton and Livingston are off to surprisingly bad starts. Hamilton and Falkirk are unsurprisingly good. Alloa are surprisingly good. Cowdenbeath are unsurprisingly bad.

Before play today the four division leaders are all still undefeated: Inverness CT are 3-1-0; Hamilton are 3-0-0; Rangers are 3-0-0, and East Stirlingshire are 3-0-0. Rangers and East Stirlingshire each have two away wins already. East Stirlingshire only had three away wins all last season. Inverness have continued to improve from last season, while Ross County have regressed and look likely to be the first to be lapped by Hearts, who are quickly overcoming their 15 point penalty. East Stirlingshire! East Stirlingshire have obviously realized the best way to avoid the Lowland League is to get into League One.

Geography corner. Which league or nearly league Scottish football clubs have home parks to the west of Cappielow (longitude of 4° 43′ 36.52″ W)? In the SPFL: Stranraer. In the Highland League: Fort William. In the Lowland League: none. In the South of Scotland League: none. Ayr United's Somerset Park is a near miss, at 6′ east of Cappielow. I grant you, Greenock is a western town, so most clubs will be to the east of it, but all of the Hebrides and the entire western coast of the Highlands are west of Greenock. The Western Highlands really are an empty quarter.

[Morton 1 - 1 Raith. Morton goal by Imrie. Morton remain in eighth place.]

This week in Europe:

Celtic 3 - 0 Shakhter Karagandy. Shakhter, who held a two-goal lead coming into this game, clearly lost heart after UEFA banned the team's traditional pregame act of animal sacrifice. Celtic move on to the group stage.

Genk 5 - 2 FH. FH are out.

In Thursday's UEFA Champions League Group Stage and Scottish League Cup Round Three draws Celtic were matched with AC Milan, Ajax, Barcelona and Morton.

Yesterday US Boulogne-sur-Mer were at home against US Colomiers (the football team not the rugby team). Colomiers is a suburb of Toulouse, near the Pyrenees. [Boulogne won 3 - 0.]

Tomorrow in Iceland sixth-place ÍBV host fifth-place Valur. [Nope, postponed.] In Japan Sapporo entertain Okayama. Okayama is in the southwesternmost part of Honshu, on the Inland Sea, opposite Shikoku. [2 - 2.]

The Sandstone Bank

City Hops

Everybody Have Fun Tonight (1986)

I usually had about six or eight draft in me whenever I saw this Wang Chung video during the Golden Age of Video, so I never really appreciated the editing in it, as the rest of the room was behaving the same way. D

2013-14 Scottish League Cup, Round Two

It's the Scottish League Cup, Round Two. Morton are at home to Montrose FC.

Montrose FC began in 1879, joined the SFL in 1923 as part of the short-lived Division Three, and then joined up again in 1929. They currently play in League 2, whose maiden name was Third Division. They have never won the Scottish Cup, League Cup or Challenge Cup, or been in the top division. (Ergo, Morton is the more illustrious club.) They play at Links Park, capacity 3,292. At home they wear blue and white, away black and gold, and so continue this year's black and gold theme. They are known as the Gable Endies. See here for a club history.

Morton and Montrose played together in the Third Division in 2002-03. Morton took three games with one draw. Montrose fans will remember that their team knocked the Ton out of the third round of the 1995-96 Scottish Cup. This is their first meeting in the League Cup.

Montrose is situated in Angus between Dundee and Aberdeen, and has a local rivalry with Brechin, Forfar and Arbroath, though all three are currently one league higher. Regardless, Montrose beat Arbroath in Round One.

Greenock commemorates its wartime relationship with the Free French Navy at the Free French Memorial on Lyle Hill. Montrose marked its connection to the Free Norwegian Forces with a statue to Bamse the dog on Wharf Street.

The big shock upset of the League Cup Round One was Forfar's ouster of Glasgow Rangers. Round Two offers last year's League Cup winner St Mirren against last year's Challenge Cup winner Queen of the South.

[Morton win 4 - 0 in front of a very small crowd. Goals by Cham, Fitzpatrick, Hands and Fulton. Upsets: Ross County, Kilmarnock and St Mirren are out. Rangers advance past Berwick in the Challenge Cup.]

Church and Telecom

Unarigoe, Chapter 5, Page 11

Time Winds Down

The first question to ask about any town in Central Scotland is, "What did they used to make there?" In the case of Dumbarton it's ships, whiskey, and clocks. Above is the old Westclox factory at Strathleven. Source.

Today Morton travel to Dumbarton. Morton are off to a so-so start with a win and a loss. Dumbarton have but one point to show.

Sports that would lose their point without timepieces: American football, running.

Sports that don't really give a damn what time it is: baseball, cricket, tennis.

There's a discussion of Morton's stellar 1963-64 season going on at GreenockMorton.org. That was the year the Ton finished first in Division Two with 32 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss, and scored 135 goals.

[Dumbarton win 3 - 1. Morton fall to eighth place! Imrie is the only Morton scorer.]

Yesterday Boulogne visited Dunkerque. Dunkerque (or Dunkirk in Scots) is in the same corner of France as Boulogne, just on the other side of Calais. [Dunkerque won 1 - 0.]

Tomorrow Mito HollyHock host Sapporo [visitors win 1 - 3], and ÍBV are at Fylkir [visitors win 0 - 1].

Industrial Bas Relief

Tyrkjaránið

You might think that having a volcano go off in the central business district would be the worst thing that could happen in the history of a town. But no. In 1627 Vestmannaeyjar and surrounding settlements on the south coast of Iceland were attacked by Barbary pirates under a Dutch captain named Murat Reis, and about 400 people were taken captive and sold as slaves in Algeria, and most of them never made it home again. In Vestmannaeyjar the event is remembered as Tyrkjaránið, the Turkish Raid. You can learn about it at the Sagnheimar Folk Museum. Or watch this news report.

Today ÍBV host Keflavík ÍF. Currently ÍBV sit mid-table and are going to miss out on Europe next year if they don't get it together. Keflavík have only three wins so far this season, so it's a timely visit. [1 - 1.]

Round Two of the Scottish Challenge Cup was played this midweek.  Queen of the South, Raith Rovers, Annan Athletic, Falkirk, Dundee, Stenhousemuir and Formartine United of the Highland League advance, plus either Rangers or Berwick who play next week.

Morton lost 1 - 2 to Motherwell U20 in a closed door game at Dalziel Park, Carfin, a suburb of Motherwell. Cham was the Morton scorer. Dalziel is pronounced DL.

In Europe this week it was Shakhter Karagandy 2 - 0 Celtic; FH [0 - 2] Genk.

Yesterday Sapporo hosted Ehime FC and won 3 - 0.