In the early 1870s numerous football teams were being formed in Scotland, especially in the west of the country, and as the games popularity grew, in 1873, the Scottish Football Association came into being.

The early days of football were very much different from today, when a football pitch consisted of any field or open space with the goal area consisting of a rope slung between two poles, with the rules of the game dissimilar than those of today.

Interest in the game was such that various groups in Greenock had started to form their own teams and in 1874 Morton Football Club came into being.

The general consensus of opinion is that the club was named after the row of houses were the nucleus of where the team lived, namely Morton Terrace, with the pitch being a muddy field next to their homes.

However, some think that the club may have been named directly after influential entrepreneur James Morton, a local builder to trade and provost of Greenock at that time, and who became the first patron of Morton Football Club.

Either, or both versions could well be correct, and with the passage of time we will probably never have it proved one way or the other.

In any case it was a Robert Aitken, John Barrie, James Farrell, Matthew Park and Alexander Ramsay who, in 1874, convened the clubs inaugural meeting, with the first ever recorded written words being;

"that this club be called Morton Football Club"