RHEL 8 systemctl startup script fails - linux

Question

I have an application startup script that works correctly under RHEL 7, using both the "service" and "systemctl" commands. However when I use the same startup script and service config file on RHEL 8, the "service" command will stop and start the application, but the "systemctl" command will not start it.
The contents of the alm.service file are:
[Unit]
Description=Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
Documentation=https://software.microfocus.com/en-us/solutions/software-development-lifecycle
After=opt-repository.mount
[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/var/opt/HP/ALM/runtime/MFALM.pid
User=alm
ExecStart=/etc/init.d/alm start
ExecStop=/etc/init.d/alm stop
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
The portion of the /etc/init.d/alm script that starts the application is:
#!/bin/bash
#
# chkconfig: 35 20 80
# Description: QC Application LifeCycle Management
#
export LANG="en_US.utf8"
source /etc/profile
start () {
echo -n "Starting HP ALM: "
#Log as alm if account is not the good one
testfile=/opt/repository/base_install/.test_$RANDOM_`date|sed 's/ //g'`
testcmd="touch $testfile"
rmcmd="rm $testfile"
if [ `id -u` -eq 0 ]; then
testcmd="su alm -c \"touch $testfile\""
rmcmd="su alm -c \"rm $testfile\""
fi
echo
eval "$testcmd" 2>/dev/null
if [ ! $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo $'\n'"$0 ERROR: UNABLE to access REPOSITORY (touch $testfile) on read-write mode !"
echo $'\n'"!!! ABORTING ALM restart !!!"
echo $'\n'"But this could also be caused by this `uname -n` client needing reboot due to NFS hang."
else
eval "$rmcmd"
cd /var/opt/HP/ALM/wrapper
id
ls -l HPALM
# ./HPALM start
/var/opt/HP/ALM/wrapper/HPALM start
echo "HPALM returned Status: " $?
ls -l /var/opt/HP/ALM/runtime/MFALM.pid
fi
}
The HPALM script forks the daemon process and creates the /var/opt/HP/ALM/runtime/MFALM.pid file when the process is started.
When I do service alm start the application starts correctly.
However, when I do systemctl start alm I get the following error in journalctl -xe
Oct 03 21:18:29 12ee04f4556c44c alm[1311785]: Starting QC ALM:
Oct 03 21:18:29 12ee04f4556c44c alm[1311785]: user ID uid=(alm) gid=(team_alm_L4_users)
Oct 03 21:18:29 12ee04f4556c44c alm[1311785]: calling ./HPALM start
Oct 03 21:18:29 12ee04f4556c44c alm[1311829]: uid=(alm) gid=(team_alm_L4_users)
Oct 03 21:18:29 12ee04f4556c44c alm[1311830]: -rwxr-xr-x. 1 alm team_alm_L4_users 54983 Oct 3 21:06 HPALM
Oct 03 21:18:29 12ee04f4556c44c alm[1311831]: /etc/init.d/alm: line 36: /var/opt/HP/ALM/wrapper/HPALM: Permission denied
Oct 03 21:18:29 12ee04f4556c44c alm[1311785]: HPALM returned Status: 126
Oct 03 21:18:29 12ee04f4556c44c alm[1311832]: ls: cannot access '/var/opt/HP/ALM/runtime/MFALM.pid': No such file or directory
The RHEL 8 release version is Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.6 (Ootpa)
These same files and scripts work correctly on RHEL 7.
Does anyone know what has changed with RHEL 8 that would cause this to fail with systemctl but allow it to work with service?