"Southerner of Greenock, Captain James Grant, Entering Smyrna, 1864" by Raffaele Corsini. Source.
No one knows for sure why Greenock Morton is named Morton. Is the club named after Morton Terrace, or Provost James Morton, or maybe even the Earl of Morton? One reason why it wasn't simply named Greenock FC is that there were other football clubs springing up around town at the same time as Morton. One of those was Greenock Southern. Morton met them in Round Three of the 1884-85 Scottish Cup and won 5 - 0.
Port Glasgow Athletic played against two other early Greenock clubs. They beat Greenock Rangers 11-0 in Round One of the 1887-88 Scottish Cup, and Greenock Abstainers 8 - 0 in Round Two of the 1889-90 Scottish Cup.
Today St Mirren visit Cappielow. This is the first rearranged fixture of the season for both clubs. It was to have been played on October 22nd but was preempted by Morton's League Cup semi-final.
What a terrible season St Mirren are having. They have played eleven league matches and have yet to record a win. The Buddies became the first Championship club to sack their manager this season, doing so on September 18th. They have held last place in the division since Week Five.
But, to their credit, they did win three of four in the League Cup group stage, and they're into the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup.
If Morton win tonight they move into fourth place. If St Mirren win by four goals the Buddies move into ninth.
Morton have not had a win against St Mirren since April 10th, 1999.
[Morton win 3 - 1. Goals by O'Ware, Forbes, and Oliver.]
Livingston have been ordered to replay their Challenge Cup fourth round match against Crusaders, because they fielded an ineligible player the first time. That goes tonight. [Crusaders 0 - 3 Livingston.]
Also: Forfar vs Edinburgh City in the Scottish Cup. [Edinburgh City win 0 - 1.]
Jai Quitongo has been added to Scotland's U-21 squad.
Which saints play in Scottish football, and at what level?
Premiership: John the Baptist (St Johnstone FC)
Championship: Mirren (St Mirren FC)
South of Scotland League: Cuthbert (St Cuthbert Wanderers FC)
North Caledonian League: Duthus (St Duthus FC)
East Region Superleague: Andrew (St Andrews United FC)
North Region Superleague: Ternan (Banchory St Ternan FC)
North Region First Division West: Ninian (Nairn St Ninian FC)
West Region Central District First Division:
Roch (St Roch's FC)
Anthony (St Anthony's FC)
Caledonian League: Mungo (St Mungo's AFC)
Scottish Amateur Football League Premier Division:
Joseph (St Joseph's FP AFC)
All of them (Oban Saints AFC)
Scottish Women's Football League First Division:
All of them (Paisley Saints Ladies)
How to do early football research. Your most important resource is the newspaper. When you read a match report in a daily newspaper the only person between you and the play is the reporter, who in most cases was there at the game. (Sometimes they're at the pub.) Newspaper reports offer a level of detail that you won't find in football history books, and they put the game in the context of what else was going on in town. Sports historians are often guilty of not knowing their civic history. Oftentimes the answer to a question about the football club comes from some other page than the sports page.
For Greenock Morton, your best resource is the Greenock Telegraph. Unfortunately, the online archive only goes back to 1998, so you need to find a library with the Tele on microfilm. If you are not in the UK this will probably be a problem.
Second best is the Glasgow Herald. It carried summaries of football matches from across Scotland. Any Morton game will receive a paragraph, and you will at least learn the names of the players. The Herald did not publish on Sunday, so the Saturday results were printed on Monday. A more or less complete run of the Herald is available at the Google News Archive. The images of the newspaper pages are scans of photos, so sometimes the text is illegible.
Much of the statistical work has already been done for you by FitbaStats and Scottish Football Historical Archive. But they're not infallible, so it never hurts to test them against the old newspaper results.
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