Greenock is slightly curious as an historical source of footballers. Its heavy industry and docks attracted population but it would remain mobile. One third of the top-flight players born in the town would as children with their families move on and actually learn their football elsewhere. However, a significant number remained and, whilst the game might have taken them elsewhere, in Scotland, England and later the USA, they would then on hanging up their boots return home to live out the remainder of their lives. That, for example, includes the prince of 'keepers at the turn of the 19th Century, Harry Rennie.

Moreover, those same players were born and grew up in a remarkably concentrated area, literally within yards of each other, which naturally creates a stroll of little more than a mile starting not from Renfrew Central station but Cartsdyke and Greenock Morton's Cappielow ground to Greenock West or vice versa. The route is in part via cleared areas but also streets, including the teenage home of Rennie himself, that seem little touched by the last hundred years but equally show no sign of their contribution over the same to our and the World game.