Andy Ritchie (Scottish Footballer)
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Andrew Ritchie (born 23 February 1956) is a Scottish retired professional footballer.


Career at Morton

Born in
Bellshill Bellshill (pronounced "Bells hill") is a town in North Lanarkshire in Scotland, southeast of Glasgow city centre and west of Edinburgh. Other nearby localities are Motherwell to the south, Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Hamilton to the south ...
, as a teenager Ritchie had trials with
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, Coventry City, Everton,
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and Rangers, but chose to join Celtic in 1971, aged 15. Soon after, Ritchie was 'farmed' out to Junior team Kirkintilloch Rob Roy. At Celtic, Ritchie had numerous disagreements with manager
Jock Stein John Stein (5 October 1922 – 10 September 1985) was a Scottish association football, football player and manager (association football), manager. He was the first manager of a club from a Northern European country to win the European Champio ...
, which led to his transfer to Morton. As part of the transfer, Morton goalkeeper Roy Baines joined Celtic in exchange for Ritchie and a payment of £10,000. Ritchie is most famous for his seven years at
Greenock Greenock (; ; , ) is a town in Inverclyde, Scotland, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. The town is the administrative centre of Inverclyde Council. It is a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, and forms ...
side Morton, during which he scored 118 goals. He was revered by the club's fans and earned the nicknames "the King of Cappielow Park" and "The Idle Idol". He made his debut for Morton on 28 October 1976 and scored 133 goals in 246 games for the club. He was the top scorer in the Premier Division in 1978–79. Ritchie was famous for what, by the standard of most professional footballers, was a rotund build and apparently blase demeanour. Scottish football journalist
Chick Young Charles "Chick" Young (born 4 May 1951) is a professional association football pundit (expert), pundit who regularly appears for BBC Scotland on ''Sportscene'' and ''Sportsound''. He is known for his trademark laugh and speech patterns, which h ...
saw Ritchie as "the epitome of the Scottish footballer – a fat, lazy bastard, but with great ball skill". He was renowned in Scotland for his expertise in free-kicks, reputedly perfected by observing
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train for the
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. His signature, demonstrated in more than one competitive match, was the ability to bend the ball into the net from a corner kick. His best and most famous goal was scored against
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at Cappielow Park. In an incident, he almost broke his leg falling over Greenock Telegraph photographer, Jim Sinclair, after he failed to stop on a long run up the field. Whilst at Morton, Ritchie won a solitary cap for the Scotland national under-21 football team as an overage player, against
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.


Career after Morton

Ritchie was transferred from Morton to
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in 1983. He was player-manager for Albion Rovers in season 1984–85. He retired in 1985, aged 28. Later, he took up a coaching and scouting role for Celtic and subsequent scouting roles for Aston Villa and Manchester City. He became an official SPL match observer. A biography, ''The King of Cappielow'' was published on 11 October 2008. A more warts and all account of Ritchie's life appeared in ''Flawed Genius; Scottish Football's Self Destructive Mavericks (Birlinn 2009).


Awards

Ritchie received the Scottish Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year award in
1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...
. In common with the rest of his teammates at Scottish Premier Division club Greenock Morton, he was a part-time footballer. On the day of the award ceremony Ritchie worked a shift in his other job laying tar as a road surfacer. In 2005, he was voted 'cult hero' in an internet poll for the
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television's ''
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'' programme, receiving 64 per cent of votes cast for Morton players.


Quotes

Some quotes from the book ''Greenock Morton 1874–1999'' by Vincent P Gillen.() *"Andy Ritchie – I can close my eyes and see the day as clear as you like. Morton were getting a doing by Dundee Utd and the defence was under siege. Big Andy was standing at the centre circle, hands inside his shirt sleeves, looking at the seagulls, bored out of his skull, when Davie Hayes blootered the ball out – it was just Andy and Paul Hegarty left, and Andy, you couldn't slip a copy of the Greenock Telegraph under his feet when he jumped. :Hegarty jumped and missed and Ritchie did what
Pelé Edson Arantes do Nascimento (; 23 October 1940 – 29 December 2022), better known by his nickname Pelé (), was a Brazilian professional Association football, footballer who played as a Forward (association football), forward. Widely reg ...
couldn't do and volleyed the ball past Hamish from the half way line! *"Big Andy was always full of the verbal – always had a smile on his face, especially when he nutmegged you. I think in fact with the goal he scored in the Scottish Cup, players were always that terrified of Andy nutmegging them that they would shut their legs and he curled it roon them, you know. :He had such a good footballing brain that he sussed things like that. He had scored the one from 50 yards and he was in his own half, nobody near him and he shouted "Big Yin, ye'd better pick me up, I'll probably score from here" – you're talking 60–70 yards and I was thinking, he's got a point, I better get across. He was the scourge of the Dons in those days." –
Alex McLeish Alexander McLeish (born 21 January 1959) is a Scottish professional football manager and former player. He played as a defender for Aberdeen during their 1980s glory years, making nearly 500 League appearances for the club, and won 77 caps f ...
*"Ritchie came at the right time – he was the cream at the top of the cake at the time...he got the label of being a lazy player and he nurtured that a little bit ... I used to train him on his own, he trained hard. He was a character, his skills were unbelievable, his passing, his vision, his dead ball situations. there was a free kick at a preseason game, we had a wee thing with Watford at the time ... and they came about three seasons in a row. I can always remember this one game, Andy had a free kick just over the centre circle ... they don't put a wall up or anything and Mick (Jackson) says, it was his first game, "He's not going to shoot from there", just leave him I says, he hits the ball in the roof of the net ... he was that good" – Benny Rooney


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ritchie, Andy 1956 births Albion Rovers F.C. managers Albion Rovers F.C. players Celtic F.C. players Clydebank F.C. (1965) players East Stirlingshire F.C. players Greenock Morton F.C. non-playing staff Greenock Morton F.C. players Kirkintilloch Rob Roy F.C. players Living people Motherwell F.C. players Scotland men's under-21 international footballers Scottish Football League managers Scottish Football League players Scottish Football League representative players Scottish football managers Scottish men's footballers Footballers from Bellshill Scottish league football top scorers Men's association football forwards