ALLAN Moore's shortlived playing career at Morton came when the club was at its lowest ebb, his stay crashing to an unseemly end when manager Peter Cormack branded him a disruptive influence on the dressing room.
Rae may still have work to do to make Cappielow SPL compliant in the event Morton can sustain a title charge, and Moore is not ruling it out.Ten seasons later, it is fitting that he should be back at Cappielow as the occupant of the manager's office, scheming away in his hard-working, almost hyperactive style, to produce a side in his own image. Moore was awarded the Irn-Bru Phenomenal First Division Manager of the Month award last week in recognition of the two wins and two draws which have taken his team level on points with Hamilton Academical at the top of the table and put smiles back on the faces of the club's long-suffering fans.Moore wasted little time building a similar rapport with McKenzie's hands-on Morton counterpart Douglas Rae, who was taking baby steps as chairman during Moore's playing days at the club and had made a move to recruit him in October 2009. "Douglas always liked my style of play when I went there with Stirling, even if it was sometimes to [Morton's] detriment. He always had a good relationship with [former manager] Jim McInally and told me once that he never sacked Jim, Jim walked away. I said, 'that's good, but you must have sacked the other seven then'."You know when Jacko [Di Giacomo] is in because the place just livens up," Moore says. "He sits with his wee cup of tea, like a sweetie wife, and slaughters my physio and my kit man."It would be incorrect to brand the 46-year-old a graduate from Scottish football's "old school". Moore has taken on the services of a full-time sports scientist, Graeme Jones, whose new fitness regime has allowed men with lengthy injury histories - Stuart McCaffrey, Andy Jackson and Peter MacDonald - to appear as sharp and productive as at any point in their careers."I had only managed Under-14s before Stirling so Peter was quite right to be a bit sceptical [about appointing him]," he said. "I am probably only a football manager now because he stood by me. I went 11 games on the trot getting beaten and it all changed down at Morton, we beat them in a midweek game.""When I went to Morton last year, the fitness levels were a disgrace," Moore said. "Some of the body fat percentages were off the scale for football players. Our coach said our fitness levels were at 40% last season when Raith Rovers were at 90%.""I don't want to play it down too much because I think we have got a good team and I want the players to believe we have got a good team," he said.The last time Morton were even close to reaching the top flight was during the 1995/96 season when they took on Dundee United on the last day, needing a win to secure a play-off place, while Dunfermline met Airdrie at East End Park. Morton drew 2-2, but a late penalty from Marc Millar clinched the title for Dunfermline and who was responsible for earning the winning spot-kick? "I took a wee dive with 10 minutes to go and that was us," Moore says, with a wicked smile."Douglas wears his heart on his sleeve and everybody says he is a hard chairman to work under, but he is not a hard chairman if you chat away with him and tell him what you are doing. Douglas said last year he sometimes questioned the team I was putting out, although he never told me not to. Everybody knows he likes to sit in the dressing room afterwards but he runs the club, that is his prerogative. If I am doing well, then there are not going to be any problems. If I am not, then he has every right to tell me."As if to illustrate the point, since arriving at the club in May last year, Moore has populated his squad with characters he could vouch for from previous clubs and reinstituted a lunchtime soup and roll at the club's Quarrier's Village training base. There is post- training darts for players with assistant Mark McNally, who also takes them for the occasional day at the races. The inheritor of his mantle as the life and soul of the Cappielow dressing room is Paul Di Giacomo.State-of-the-art medical treatment has included sending young winger Sean Fitzharris to have goat blood injected into a hamstring.Whether the Greenock side can have legitimate ideas of ending almost quarter of a century of exile from the top division should start to become clearer when they take on relegated Accies in an intriguing Ramsdens Cup quarter-final tie at New Douglas Park this afternoon.Moore and McNally have given up plenty to be at Cappielow. The manager abandoned a part-time job at Cumbernauld College, where he completed an HNC and HND in sports development, while McNally left the SFA's coach education department after three years. After eight seasons at Stirling, Moore sensed it was time to leave Forthbank and the decision was made easier by the imminent departure of chairman Peter McKenzie.
The last time Morton were even close to reaching the top flight was during the 1995/96 season when they took on Dundee United on the last day, needing a win to secure a play-off place, while Dunfermline met Airdrie at East End Park. Morton drew 2-2, but a late penalty from Marc Millar clinched the title for Dunfermline and who was responsible for earning the winning spot-kick? "I took a wee dive with 10 minutes to go and that was us," Moore says, with a wicked smile.
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