24/08/2007
Andy Ritchie - Set Piece King
Morton legend Andy Ritchie features in a two page centre spread exclusive by Ronnie MacKay in today's Supergoals pull-out in the Scottish Sun.
The article is supposed to be about Ritchie hailing Celtic's Shunsuke Nakamura's set pieces but is more or less about Ritchie and his free-kick taking ability.
Ritchie reveals that he was inspired to perfect his free kick taking ability after watching Brazilian star Rivelino training at the 1974 World Cup. Ritchie says that after watching Rivelino he himself would "practice and practice getting my feet in the right position - I spent years doing that." He goes onto say : "I probably practised free kicks harder than I trained. I used to spend about an hour before training practising free kicks. I would take every opportunity to do that".
On his technique Ritchie said "Sometimes I opted for power and sometimes I floated the ball in - it is something you can't coach".
As well as the main article there was a smaller story at the side (you can read by clicking on the image to the left to enlarge) in which Ritchie reveals his favourite free kick was against Peter Bonetti of Dundee United at Cappielow. The article also reveals that Pat Bonner considers his best ever save to be from a Ritchie free kick and a Ritchie free kick against Watford is the best former England manager Graham Taylor has ever seen scored.
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