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Programme Review
by Eddie McDowell
Mortons first and, to-date, only excursion into European competition was
in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup of 1968-69 where they met Chelsea over two
legs.
The match programme bore a picture of the Queen Elizabeth on the front,
and cost the princely sum of a shiny sixpence. (that's 2.5p for those of
you too young to remember when there were twelve pennies in a shilling!).
Your investment got you a twelve page programme which contained the "Cappielow
Comment" editorial (from which we quote below), a fixture list
and some player statistics, the team lists for this match, a detailed
two-page "who's who" section on the visitors and some
Chelsea records and statisitics.
As well as the footballing information and Club history old programmes
contain there is always a social and local history content which makes
them interesting as well. The older Morton supporter may remember some of
the local businesses which advertised in this programme; Calders music
shop, Edmonstons home bakery, Lawsons, and Doigs are all gone now and
adverts in old match programmes and old copies of the Greenock
Telegraph are all that remain. Business must have been booming at both
of the local Morton shops. Yes, Morton had TWO shops in the area; one at
43 Westburn Street in Greenock and one at 25 Ardgowan Street in Port
Glasgow. Changed days!
Chelsea had humped Morton 5-0 in the first leg at Stamford Bridge which
made the return leg at Cappielow a bit of an exercise in futility. The
programme editorial put it this way: "Chelsea's 5-0 win over us in
London has placed them in a practically unassailable position but our boys
will be going all out for a victory that will at least narrow the
aggregate score".
It appears that, in the eyes of the programme editor at least, Morton
were unlucky to have been beaten by five lucky goals against the run of
play. The editorial continued: "Although Chelsea were worthy winners
at Stamford Bridge we could very well have been in the lead at half time
instead of two last minute goals down. Had fortune been kinder to us
during the first half there is no saying what the final result might have
been.". Quite.
The Morton team of this time featured a number of Danes; Arentoft,
Jensen and Thorup were all listed in the starting line-up and Per Bartram
was on the bench. Also appearing in the Morton team for this game was a
promising youngster called Joe Harper. The Chelsea team also contained a
few well-known names; Peter Bonetti, Ron "Chopper" Harris, Peter
Osgood were all there along with four Scots; International full-back Eddie
McCreadie, half-back John Boyle, reserve goalkeeper Tommy Hughes and
forward Charlie Cooke, who was brought up in Greenock!
The full team lists were:
Morton: Crawford, Thorup, Sweeney, Atertoft, Gray, Strachan,
Harper, Jensen, Mason, Allan, Taylor.
Subs: Rankin, Stevenson, Bartram
Chelsea: Bonetti, Harris, McCreadie, Hollins, Webb, Boyle,
Baldwin, Cooke, Osgood, Birchenall, Tambling.
Subs: Hughes, Hinton, Houseman
Chelsea scored their sixth goal in the first minute of this match, but
Morton fought back with goals from Thorup, Mason and Taylor to make the
score 6-3 on aggregate. The second-half was to prove an anti-climax for
the 'Ton support and Chelsea won 4-3 on the night an 9-3 on aggregate.
The Fairs Cup had previously been won three times by Barcelona, twice by
Valencia, and once by Roma, Real Zaragoza, Ferencvaros, Dinamo Zagreb and
Leeds United. Unsurprisingly, Mortons name was never to appear on this
list.
©2002-2005 GMST
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