Andy Ritchie Biography Details

John Riddle (pictured with Andy Ritchie in the Spinnaker hotel) - the author in the process of writing a biography on Andy Ritchie - has emailed me with some details of his book.

The biography (written with Ritchie's permission) entitled The King Of Cappielow: The Biography Of Andy Ritchie is to be published on the 11th of October 2008 by Apex Publishing Ltd. It will be available in paperback priced at £7.99.

The following description appears on Apex Publishing's website:

Andy Ritchie’s potential was first spotted by his school teacher, Craig Brown, who later would become Scotland manager. Andy went to Celtic Boys club and very soon was offered a professional contract with Celtic - the Glasgow Giants. After one too many spats with the legendary Jock Stein he was transferred to Greenock Morton FC where he became a legend. Andy was in the team that rose from the bottom of the old second division to the top of the Scottish Premier League. In 1979 he was named the Scottish Football Writers Player of the Year whilst in England a former team mate Kenny Dalglish took the honour.

He was denied a Scotland cap by the then manager Jock Stein, who ignored the
calls of “Ritchie for Scotland” after a stunning hat-trick at Dundee.

http://www.apexpublishing.co.uk/PubDetails.asp?Num=157

Russell Steele's Greenock Telegraph article on the book: http://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/article.php?sec=1&id=17539