Andy Morrison returns to Scotland with Welsh side Connah's Quay
Friday 22 March 2019 09:40, UK
Connah's Quay Nomads manager Andy Morrison sits down with Sky Sports News reporter James Cooper ahead of the Welsh side's Scottish Challenge Cup final appearance in Inverness...
Have you heard the one about the Welsh team playing in the final of Scottish cup competition - as the home side - but facing an 800-mile round-trip, while the 'away' team only has to travel 10 miles?
It's not a joke - Welsh Premier League side Connah's Quay Nomads are travelling to the Highlands to contest the Scottish Challenge Cup final against Ross County in Inverness this weekend.
For the Nomads' manager Andy Morrison, however, it is a homecoming. Morrison spent the first eight years of his life in the very northern tip of Scotland before his family relocated to Plymouth.
The 48-year-old went on to captain Manchester City and has overseen the most successful period in the Nomads' history since becoming manager in November 2015 - and he laughed off the notion their long-distance away day makes any difference to their chances.
"I was brought up almost two hours north of Inverness. You're almost falling off the top of the UK - it's that high up," he told Sky Sports News.
"If they'd put the final in the Orkney Islands we'd row there, turn up, and we couldn't play any different - it makes no odds to us whatsoever. All the Inverness fans that come along will be Welsh for the day, because there's a bitterness in that area.
"I always joke with my father that the only thing he robbed me of in my life was my Scottish accent and, as beautiful as this west country twang is, it's not the voice of home. William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Andy Morrison - there's no difference in the three of them. That's how patriotic I am."
The Nomads are the first non-Scottish club to play in a Challenge Cup final after the competition was opened up to Irish, Northern Irish and Welsh sides three seasons ago - but it is not the first time they have travelled to Scotland to play, even this season.
In the second round they went to Falkirk and won, then they played Queen's Park at Hampden Park in the quarter-finals and won again, before beating Edinburgh City 5-4 on penalties following a 1-1 draw at their Deeside Stadium in Wales in the semis, in front of a record crowd of 1068.
Morrison is not expecting the same number to travel so many more miles for the coming final but he is hoping his family in the region will beef up the 'home' support in Scotland's most northerly major city.
"There's some fans going up by coach, some by train, some are even driving," he said. "But our average gates are maybe 250 so if we were to get even half of that number coming up we'd be over the moon with it.
"I've got family coming up, but I've more family coming down, so I'm hoping maybe 25 or 30 family, friends and relations are coming down from the north and hoping a hundred will come up."
Voted as the second-hardest player ever to pull on a Manchester City shirt by supporters, narrowly pipped by Bert Trautmann, and the club's third-best captain, Morrison has taken Connah's Quay to new heights since moving to the club in November 2015.
They have qualified for three successive Europa League campaigns and last season won their first major piece of silverware by beating Aberystwyth Town to lift the Welsh FA Cup - all despite having only 12 full-time professionals, with the rest part-timers made up of postmen, builders, security staff and railway workers.
But in the home dressing room at the Caledonian Stadium on Saturday, Morrison will look to find the "warrior" in each of them with the aim of causing a massive upset and taking the Nomads further than they ever have been before.
"Ross County were relegated last year and they kept all their squad together - and strengthened - so we're massive underdogs," Morrison said.
"We're way outsiders to get anything out of it, but in the past that's never phased us. Yes it's a massive ask but don't be surprised if we win the game.
"For me, there's a warrior in every man and if I can find that, and bring that out, and I can get eight or nine of them onto a pitch on a Saturday, I've got a helluva chance of winning a game of football."
