Don’t panic! This tie-up could give Morton a newlease of life I don’t see any change about the place. It’s out of time

ANDY Ritchie’s first impression of life at Morton took his breath away. Almost literally. in October 1976, a fire burned in the corner of the dressing room, the smell of gas seeping down the corridor.

And the cappielow legend believes he hasn’t seen a great deal of change since.

the gas fire is now gone. the old place has been painted. Last year, the club spent £120,000 on a new electronic turnstile system.

Yet Morton cult hero Ritchie still has the sense of a proud footballing institution battling to avoid the same fate as the clyde shipyards.

And, if local businessman sandy easdale manages to convince Mike Ashley and his associates that Morton can be a useful feeder club for Newcastle or other english clubs, he sees no down side.

‘i’ve felt for a long, long time that cappielow is stuck in Groundhog Day,’ Ritchie told Sportsmail.

‘Morton needs to change as a football club. it’s outdated. it’s old-fashioned and it doesn’t operate the way a lot of other clubs do their business.

‘supporters feel cappielow is their traditional home and quite rightly so. But i don’t see any change around the place. it’s out of time.

‘there were modern turnstiles installed recently and when i saw that i got the feeling that the roof was leaking and they’d put in a new front door.

‘they don’t have the most up-todate facilities for supporters.’

Mike Ashley associates Derek Llambias and Graham carr discovered as much on Monday afternoon when, as Sportsmail first revealed, they watched a 1-0 defeat for Morton’s reserve team to Queen of the south in the company of former Rangers director sandy easdale.

they were introduced to chief executive Warren hawke and manager Jonatan Johansson, although Morton officials believed the pair were in scotland to watch easdale’s son Alexander play for the club’s second string.

Yet the notion of Ashley’s righthand man and former Newcastle chief scout having either the time or the inclination to travel to Greenock at the beginning of a working week for a social visit is fanciful.

Rumours of an easdale bid to assume control of Morton are not new. With brother James, the McGill’s bus tycoon owns a number of businesses in the inverclyde area and recently purchased the cappielow industrial estate behind the football stadium.

Allies in the long, bitter battle for control of Rangers, however, easdale’s efforts to interest Ashley in a Morton tie-up have the potential to transform the championship club.

‘if they are being used as a feeder club for a team like Newcastle then it would be a positive so far as i am concerned,’ added Ritchie. ‘You would be able to bring in a better class of player on loan.

‘Newcastle could negotiate this kind of agreement with any club in the lower leagues in england. they could do it with virtually any club in scotland.

‘the fact they have chosen Morton might be down to the link-up between the easdale brothers and Mike Ashley.

‘that, to me, is all positive. there would be nothing negative attached to it at all because it’s not costing Morton a brass farthing.

‘they don’t have money to pay astronomical sums for the wages of young Newcastle players, so that would be heavily subsidised i would imagine.’

Newcastle’s local evening paper carried a story last week suggesting investment in the club’s youth academy could be scaled back.

struggling to deliver value for money, english clubs — including huddersfield — have switched from category 2 academy status to category 4, leading to the scrapping of seven age categories.

‘they pump huge sums into their academies down there,’ explained Ritchie, a former chief scout.

‘And there is talk of Newcastle trimming that back. Morton may be one of a few clubs Newcastle hope to establish a tie-up with.

‘i don’t see Ashley appearing as some kind of new Morton sugar daddy. that’s not going to happen.

‘he won’t be there every day of the week, if at all. But he will have the easdales there and the people he puts in to assist them.

‘he has the clout and the means to change things for the better. Players don’t usually go out en bloc, it’s usually ones and twos.

‘there is an opportunity here for Morton to become active in that market. it happens everywhere now. it would benefit Morton all ways around if that is the case.’

Ashley, however, remains a bitterly divisive figure. Newcastle fans established an ‘Ashley Out’ website railing against ‘ten years of broken promises, lies and deceit’.

Rangers fans also fought tooth and nail to free the club from his financial stranglehold over the retail operation, a fight which continues to be fought in the courts.

in contrast, Morton are an outfit bathed in apathy. every saturday, a raft of coaches leave for ibrox or Parkhead. Before his death in June at the age of 87, former chairman Douglas Rae issued annual warnings over the threat of a return to part-time football unless fans came back.

Assuming control, son crawford spoke of a three-year vision for the club. Whether pouring more money from the family’s lucrative Golden casket confectionery company into the coffers of the local football club really makes long-term sense, however, remains to be seen.

‘Maybe crawford will feel he has run out of ideas or that he doesn’t want to spend the time and investment needed to make them a Premiership club,’ pondered Ritchie.

‘if that’s the case, then it’s probably time for a change.

‘that’s been nearly 20 years with the same family dynasty at the helm.

‘Maybe it’s just time for new people to come in with new fresh ideas for the place to try and take it forward.

‘it’s been the case for a couple of years now that people have expected the easdales to take a more active role at the club.

‘they have been sponsors for a few years now and football clubs are rarely a financial investment for men like that.

‘they make their money in business and wouldn’t necessarily look on Morton as a great cash cow. Not without making changes — and radical changes — to the place in a way likely to make more people come along to the games.

‘And, if there is to be meaningful change, then i sense it will be a bonus to the club all round.’