Veteran Morrison says the only way is up for Vale of Clyde
IT IS somewhat surprising to discover Vale of Clyde’s captain and longest-serving player Lee Morrison is only 32.
Local lad Lee has racked up 13 seasons in the Junior ranks since being reinstated fron Stenhousemuir as a teenager and has spent the vast majority of that time – except 18 month stint at Bellshill Athletic – with the Tollcross outfit where doing more right than wrong led to him playing under no fewer than seven different team managers.
A legacy of Lee’s long service is seeing a lot of players come and go down the years, including his equally competitive twin brother Bryan who partnered him in the Vale backline until work commitments brought about his retirement, so who better to ask if the famous old Glasgow club are on the rise again?
One’s timing could have been better seeing as the Tin Pail were thumped 7-0 at home by Blantyre Vics in their Macron Scottish Junior Cup secondround replay on Saturday and Lee was given his marching orders for denying a goalscoring opportunitywith only 19 minutes on the clock.
He said: “I’m disappointed in myself to be red carded because the last thing this young team of ours needed was the loss of one of our few experienced heads.
“A major rebuilding job was always on the cards at the start of this season and Mark [McKay] has come in and made a brilliant fist of recruiting a whole raft of players mainly from Amateur football and I don’t have a bad word to say about him.
“His approach is very professional with planning and attention to detail second to none and not a single Vale player goes out onto the pitch without knowing exactly what he wants.
“He works on shape, he works on set plays and he is right up there with the best managers I’ve played under at Junior level so it won’t be long before he gets this club moving in the right direction.”
Lee has known every possible Tin Pail high and low of recent times – playing in the Superleague after being crowned Central First Division winners, losing in the 2015 a Sectional League Cup final to Petershill and the bitter experience of back-to-back relegations.
He added: “You will see the real Vale of Clyde if and when Mark ever gets a settled team on the pitch.
“Things will hopefully improve going into the winter months because having young talents like Craig Stewart and Connor McGregor breeds confidence that we can still come with a charge into the promotion reckoning.”
Meanwhile hard on the heels of long-serving boss Derek Gemmell severing his ties with Ardeer Thistle comes news of yet another managerless League Two club after Forth Wanderers parted company with Ian Rankin and assistant Thomas Devine after they lost 3-2 to Ellon United in the Macron Scottish Junior Cup.