RANGERS have always had great entertainers, but Alan Morton – the ‘wee blue devil’ – was the original. He was pure box-office material the way he teased and tormented opponents on the left wing, regularly finishing each move with a pinpoint cross to one of the forwards. Invariably, Morton was the star of the show.
The diminutive winger was Bill Struth’s first signing for the club in 1920 and what an acquisition he turned out to be.
Despite a lack of stature – he was 5ft 4in tall – the former Queen’s Park man was one of the most devastating Rangers players of all time.
His ratio of 105 goals in 440 games was a marvellous return for a man who was supposed to create them for others.
He enjoyed a tremendous career at Ibrox and the zenith has to be the 1927/28 season when the club completed a domestic double for the first time in its history.
Rangers ended a 25-year run without success in the Scottish Cup in April when they finally lifted the old trophy, thumping Celtic 4-0 in a momentous final. A week later they confirmed themselves as league champions, hammering Kilmarnock 5-1 thanks to a Jimmy Fleming hat-trick.
At the end of the previous month, Morton had been one of the chief destroyers of England when Scotland famously thrashed the Auld Enemy 5-1 in their own backyard to earn the moniker the ‘Wembley Wizards’.
Morton ripped England apart in the driving rain that day and set up all three goals for hat-trick hero Alex Jackson while the legendary Alex James scored the other two.
It was one frustrated England supporter who inadvertently gave Morton his nickname when he shouted out to him, ‘You wee blue devil’. The remark was heard by a man around him and the name stuck.
The match ball from that incredible day, signed by all of the players, takes pride of place in the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden.
Morton was a superb servant to Scotland. In all, he played 11 times against the ‘Auld Enemy’ as part of his 31-cap international total. All of his matches were Home Internationals – other than his last one.
He played in a friendly match against France in Paris when the Scots, also with Bob McPhail in the team, roared to a 3-1 win with Third Lanark’s Neil Dewar scoring all three goals. Morton had been capped twice playing for Queen’s Park before his move to Ibrox.
Although born in Glasgow, Morton grew up in Airdrie and when he was turned down by the local team – what a mistake they made – he signed for Queen’s Park in 1914 and began studying to become a mining engineer. It was on completion of those studies that the fully qualified Morton turned professional and signed for Rangers.
However, he was only ever part-time at Ibrox. Incredibly, he continued his job as a mining engineer throughout his football career.
Morton was a dapper man – both on and off the field. He regularly walked to Ibrox in his bowler hat with an umbrella in hand and people called him the ‘wee Society man’ – a reference to the insurance company men who collected policy monies from households in Glasgow.
He was very self-conscious about his appearance and did not like getting his hair dirty when he played. Bob McPhail, who joined Rangers from Airdrie in 1927, once played a head-height pass out to the left wing for Morton and the winger let the ball go over his head.
When a startled McPhail inquired what Morton was up to, he told him, ‘It’s football we’re playing. We play on the ground with the ball at our feet, not in the air.’
After playing, he went on to serve Rangers as a director and his 38-year tenure is the longest board service by any individual in the club’s history to date. He remained on the board until his death in 1971 at the age of 78. The portrait of Morton in a Scotland strip, which stands at the top of the marble staircase in the Bill Struth Main Stand at Ibrox, is a testament to the esteem in which he is held at the club.