Hansard

I thank all members who signed the motion to allow the debate to take place.

I am a Morton fan, hence my reason for wanting to highlight the excellent community-based work that is going on, centred around the club. As a long-standing supporter of Greenock Morton, I am proud to speak to the motion congratulating the work of Greenock Morton Community Trust, which I will call the Morton trust in my speech.

I highlight that football clubs of all sizes are readily criticised for some of their actions. However, at my request, only a few months ago, Morton got involved with the Inverclyde food bank. What I am about to tell the chamber highlights that football clubs play a huge and positive part in their communities. Many clubs undertake excellent examples of community involvement, and I want to praise them all for that. It is always easy to criticise clubs, but let us give them praise when they merit it, too.

Before I highlight the key elements of the climate challenge fund investment, I want to provide some background on Greenock Morton and the Morton trust. Morton Football Club was founded in 1874, making it one of the oldest senior Scottish clubs. Greenock Morton has always played an important role in the social and sporting life of Greenock and Inverclyde.

Although the club’s fortunes on the field have been varied—in fact, Morton holds the record for the most promotions to and relegations from the top flight; I do not mind the promotions, but I am not so happy about the relegations, as members will understand—there has always been a strong fan base in the community. The fans have always believed that Morton’s rightful place in the top tier of Scottish football will come round again—despite the protestations that my colleague George Adam will no doubt make later.

The link between Greenock and Morton is seen in the club’s crest, which features a sailing ship—a motif taken from the town’s coat of arms, which symbolises Greenock’s shipbuilding and maritime heritage. It is through that connection between the local community and the supporters that Greenock Morton Community Trust came into existence.

The Morton trust was the initiative of Morton’s consultant for club development and former striker, Warren Hawke, who explained:

“We want to reach out to our local community and ensure that there is an interaction between the club and the people that goes beyond watching or supporting the club on a match day. We want to help address social issues and give something back to the people of Inverclyde.”

In order to accomplish that, he invited representatives of Morton and the supporters trust to act as trustees, tasking them with ensuring that the Morton trust meets those aims.

As a registered charity that brings together Greenock Morton Football Club and Greenock Morton Supporters Trust, the aim of the Morton trust is to use the Morton brand to deliver quality community coaching and social inclusion programmes to people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds across the Inverclyde area. I am delighted that Warren Hawke, Karen Welsh, Chris McCorkindale and Cappie the cat are in Parliament this afternoon.

The Morton trust runs a number of very successful football programmes, such as mini Morton, which is aimed at school-age children; micro Morton, which provides sessions for pre-school children; and Morton girls, whose aim is to develop girls’ football teams across a number of age ranges. Overall, the Morton trust delivers programmes to more than 250 primary school children and more than 900 nursery school children a week—that is nearly 1,300 children a week who are obtaining healthy activities from trained coaches.

There is also the football fans in training programme, which is run in conjunction with the Scottish Professional Football League, and the Greenock Morton hockey club programme.

The Morton trust provides a wide range of support to the people of Inverclyde and beyond. In addition to various footballing and sporting endeavours, the Morton trust has various employability programmes and is committed to helping local people to develop the skills and experience that they need to enter an increasingly competitive job market. In February 2015, the Morton trust delivered a pilot employability programme called the lone parent programme. Four out of the 11 who started the programme have found a job.

In February 2014, Greenock Morton Community Trust was awarded £39,388 via the Big Lottery Fund’s young start programme to fund the Morton futures project, which will deliver bespoke courses with the aim of tackling youth unemployment. The courses, which will last from seven to 12 weeks, will work around a sports theme and will offer young people training and volunteering opportunities, and opportunities to gain qualifications. Sixty young people aged 16 to 24 from lnverclyde will benefit.

With the support of community jobs Scotland, the Morton trust has been able to employ staff who will re-enter the job market with new skills and renewed confidence, having made a significant contribution to the work of the Morton trust and the football club.

Such employability programmes can make a difference to the lives of young people across Inverclyde by creating the opportunities for them to become involved in sports programmes, gain employment skills, improve their health and, hopefully, overcome some of the challenges that they face, particularly in the jobs market.

More such ventures to develop more innovative social inclusion programmes to enhance the link between Greenock Morton and the local community are planned for the future.

Greener Morton is the first project in Inverclyde to benefit from the Scottish Government’s climate challenge fund. The successful grant application will allow the Morton trust to deliver an eco-friendly message linked with physical activity to more than 2,000 pupils in primaries 4 to 6 in schools across Inverclyde. The funding will also allow the Morton trust to create Inverclyde’s first football kit and boot recycling facility. That will help underprivileged youngsters in Inverclyde through the re-use of perfectly good boots and kit via the recycling facility. Members will be aware of the ever-rising cost of sports equipment for families with children who are active in sports and will realise that that will be a wonderful initiative.

Some of the funding will also be used to replace tumble dryers with a new energy-efficient drying room for all team kit. The Morton trust will also start eco-friendly schemes, such as car sharing to reduce emissions, across all Morton-related teams. Ultimately, those actions by the Morton trust will help to reduce the club’s total carbon footprint. There are also plans afoot to organise an open day to promote greener living programmes.

New employment opportunities have been created as a result of the climate challenge fund. All the staff have been recruited and the project started yesterday.

The greener Morton project is an excellent example of how the climate challenge fund can be used to support existing local organisations, helping them to develop their services while promoting a more eco-friendly agenda. The Morton trust has worked closely with the ideas bank—a collaboration between Senscot and Beith Community Development Trust—to promote the sharing of best practice.

I am sure that there are other groups across Scotland carrying out similar aims. I welcome the grant given to the Morton trust and have every faith that the Morton trust will get the best value from that funding.

I hinted at the start that I am somewhat biased on the issue of Greenock Morton. However, even allowing for that, I am sure that all members—even my good friend and colleague George Adam, MSP for Paisley and a St Mirren fan—will congratulate Greenock Morton Community Trust on its success in securing that investment, which will allow it to expand the services that it provides to the community in Inverclyde.