Obituary: Eddie Morrison, footballer and manager

EEDDIE Morrison, who died suddenly while flying home from a Turkish holiday, was a legendary goal-scorer and manager with Kilmarnock. He was also one of the nicest and funniest men in football.

The Gourock-born "baby boomer" started off as a goalkeeper, playing between the sticks while a pupil at St Columba's High School in Greenock, but he came to his senses, started scoring rather than saving goals and in 1967 his form with Port Glasgow Juniors won him a senior contract with Kilmarnock.

He was quickly given a taste of first team action, making his debut less than a month later and scoring the Killie goal as they went down 3-1 to Hibs in a league game at Easter Road on 4 February. But he was immediately sent back to the reserves and he didn't re-appear in the first team until Killie travelled to face Celtic at Parkhead in November of that same year. This time he stuck and for the following decade he was Kilmarnock's main striker, forming prolific partnerships with Ross Mathie, then Ian Fleming.

In all he played 352 games for the club, while his total of 154 goals left him a mere five behind the club's all-time top scorer, Willie Culley, who played either side of the First World War. He entered a Killie team which still included league-winning legends such as Matt Watson, Frank Beattie, Jackie McGrory and Tommy McLean; he played alongside successors such as Davie Provan, Gordon Smith and Jim Stewart and he was held in equally high regard by the Rugby Park faithful, who loved his all-action, never-give-up style and his goals, both tap-ins and spectacular.

But Willie Fernie, who arrived as manager in the mid-1970s, wasn't a fan and after a final appearance off the bench against Dumbarton in January, 1976, Morrison was allowed to go to play out his career at Cappielow with Morton. Here he turned to coaching and even had a couple of short spells as caretaker manager, before succeeding Jim Clunie in the Kilmarnock hot seat in 1985.

He had some four years back at Rugby Park, but it was a much different club from that he had joined 18 years previously. Killie were part-time and there were no Beatties or McLeans in a squad struggling towards the foot of the First Division.

Morrison, as in his playing days, gave his all for the club, but as debts mounted and the fans' frustrations grew, his became a thankless task.

A long and bitter takeover battle didn't help.This was won by the Fleeting brothers and with Bobby as chairman and Jim as the new manager, Eddie left.

He went back to Morton, where he coached and helped out on the commercial side, but he was always greeted warmly when he returned to Rugby Park.

With Morton he became a great help to Allan McGraw, his golfing buddy - chauffeuring his fellow prolific goal-scorer around as McGraw was reduced to walking with two sticks.

He enjoyed a long and happy marriage to Christine and was proud of his children, Elaine, Pauline and Craig, and his six grandchildren.

Like many former footballers, his health wasn't always good and he underwent a triple heart bypass operation in 2007, from which he emerged none the worse.

Away from football he worked in the circulation and customer services department of a Glasgow newspaper group, a post in which he was immensely popular with customers and colleagues alike.

He collapsed and died suddenly while flying home from a holiday in Turkey.

Jim McSherry, a long-time team-mate at Kilmarnock, this week described Morrison as "one of the good guys, gone far too soon". "He was always laughing and joking, great in the dressing room and loved by the fans; he will be sorely missed by everyone."

McSherry also tells of how, in one of his last visits to Rugby Park, for a legends evening in the Park Suite at the ground, when it was announced that Morrison had to go forward to receive an award the familiar terracing chant of "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie Morrison" rang round the room. Returning to his seat, Morrison revealed: "I started that chant tonight."

That summed him up: a great player and a great guy, who always seemed to be laughing.