Andy Ritchie (Scottish Footballer) - Quotes

Quotes

Some quotes from the book Greenock Morton 1874-1999 by Vincent P Gillen (ISBN 0-9534559-0-4)

• "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 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

• "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

"I was 26 when I finished. I went into a spell at Cappielow when, rightly or wrongly, I felt I should have been the first player to get a big move. The club had promised me that, if I did well, they would move me again. But that didn't happen. As my team-mates moved on, the good times evaporated and I was left behind. I have to admit my appetite diminished, my general play wasn't good and I lost my way. It was not a conscious decision. In fact, when I moved to Motherwell they didn't want to announce it at Morton because they thought they wouldn't sell season tickets for the next year. I had lost my way. I was what you would call these days a sick pup. I really needed someone to have some faith in me, but I was 26 and ended up taking a non-football job in London and gave up." - Andy Ritchie, Daily Mail, 8 May 2004