Alex Murphy

[Andrew Vause]

Just in case any of the older generation of supporters who comes on here has missed it, Alex Murphy is answering questions on the "Any Other Business" forum, just in case anyone wanted to show him in what high esteem we all hold him. I might go on just to ask him why he broke my heart as seven year old by being such a cheating B.

Edited June 15, 2010 by Andrew Vause

[ROVERS83]

i might ask him if he remembers me lobbing a burger at him while he was sat in the old dug outs-"when kids used too sit on top of them" lol

[Andrew Vause]

i might ask him if he remembers me lobbing a burger at him while he was sat in the old dug outs-"when kids used too sit on top of them" lol

I remember that clearly Andy,Feb 82, when Murphy was Leigh coach. I remember the onions on his forehead.

[ROVERS83]

was a good day-lol-that bloke ad a reet temper

[Trojan]

was a good day-lol-that bloke ad a reet temper

I heard a story about Murphy from a guy who was the manager of the bar at Wilderspool. The bar had just closed and they grille had just been pulled down, when Murphy entered demanding a drink. My acquantience told him the bar was closed. Murphy said that he was the manager and demanded a drink, my guy said he was the bar manager and the bar was closed. Murphy apparently nutted the grille.

[oldrover]

a wigan fan once told me that when Murphy was coach at Wigan, he hit maurice lindsey over the head with the telephone. so he's not all bad.

[1945etseq]

After that debacle at Wembley Alex Murphy was alleged to have said "We didn't come here to entertain the crowd, we came to win the cup". If true it was fair enough I suppose if you were a Warrington supporter, but it rankled with the Rovers fans.

[Ricardo Taylor]

After that debacle at Wembley Alex Murphy was alleged to have said "We didn't come here to entertain the crowd, we came to win the cup". If true it was fair enough I suppose if you were a Warrington supporter, but it rankled with the Rovers fans.

this was probably the most bad tempered final i have seen. Tried to post a question on the match but the thread is locked and has been for somewhile.

What ever our thoughts are he certainly was a character and the game would possibly be sadder with out him. It is the characters we remember long after they have finished playing that help make it such a great game.

[Andrew Vause]

Don't remember much about him as a player but used to p*ss my sides at him as a commentator, because of how poor he was and some of the nuggets he used to come out with.

In the great 85 Challenge Cup Final, Murphy was at is absolute finest (worst). Hull had drafted a 20 year old winger in that week through injury to Prendiville. His name was something like Kevin James, he was playing his second game. The great Aussie winger John Ferguson went round him to score a try.

Murphy- " Ferguson's just gone round the greatest winger in the world"; He was of course getting him mixed up with Hull's other winger that day who was Dane O'Hara. Kevin James had blonde hair, O'Hara was a maori so I suppose it was an easy mistake to make.

Same final

French- "The atmosphere's "red hot" out there Alec"

Murphy-" I don't know about "red hot" Ray, but it's certainly "white hot""- Genius.

But his finest hour was when we beat Bradford in the Semi Final in 83.

Our Second try in reality went; Terry Hudson to Alan Banks to Steve Quinn to John Gilbert, Gilbert eventually going over.

This is roughly how Murph saw it that day- " What a great move, Alan Hudson passes it to Nigel Banks, Banks slips it to Quinn, Quinn to Marsden who's in under the posts".

Not entirely correct Alex (Alec). We seemed to have had an old Chelsea / Stoke midfielder in our backline, The full back and the stand off seemed to have hybridised he wouldn't even have a go at Quinnie's first name I assumed that he thought it was "mighty" or probably Ray and he got the slight error in try scorer, who'd scored about 40 minutes earlier still I suppose that they were both called John, and what's Twenty yards to the left of the posts, near enough to under the posts if your Alec.

Ray wasn't immune to the odd pearler in that match though. First Half- "Mick Gibbins the 16 stone prop"

Second half- "All 19 stone of Mick Gibbins", Paul G if your reading this you'll have to let me know, what your dad had eaten at half time, one pressumes, according to French it must have been a baby Giraffe or something to gain three stones in such a short time.

Murphy finally bowed out of commentary all together when one of the earlier Astra channels called "ScreenSport" went belly up. Here on a Monday night Keith Macklin (a good commentator IMO) and Murphy commentated on French RL1 games, It was an absolute joy to behold listening to the ever eloquent Murphy reciting the names of the players and the teams.

.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Andrew Vause

[jamescolin]

Don't remember much about him as a player but used to p*ss my sides at him as a commentator, because of how poor he was and some of the nuggets he used to come out with.

In the great 85 Challenge Cup Final, Murphy was at is absolute finest (worst). Hull had drafted a 20 year old winger in that week through injury to Prendiville. His name was something like Kevin James, he was playing his second game. The great Aussie winger John Ferguson went round him to score a try.

Murphy- " Ferguson's just gone round the greatest winger in the world"; He was of course getting him mixed up with Hull's other winger that day who was Dane O'Hara. Kevin James had blonde hair, O'Hara was a maori so I suppose it was an easy mistake to make.

Same final

French- "The atmosphere's "red hot" out there Alec"

Murphy-" I don't know about "red hot" Ray, but it's certainly "white hot""- Genius.

But his finest hour was when we beat Bradford in the Semi Final in 83.

Our Second try in reality went; Terry Hudson to Alan Banks to Steve Quinn to John Gilbert, Gilbert eventually going over.

This is roughly how Murph saw it that day- " What a great move, Alan Hudson passes it to Nigel Banks, Banks slips it to Quinn, Quinn to Marsden who's in under the posts".

Not entirely correct Alex (Alec). We seemed to have had an old Chelsea / Stoke midfielder in our backline, The full back and the stand off seemed to have hybridised he wouldn't even have a go at Quinnie's first name I assumed that he thought it was "mighty" or probably Ray and he got the slight error in try scorer, who'd scored about 40 minutes earlier still I suppose that they were both called John, and what's Twenty yards to the left of the posts, near enough to under the posts if your Alec.

Ray wasn't immune to the odd pearler in that match though. First Half- "Mick Gibbins the 16 stone prop"

Second half- "All 19 stone of Mick Gibbins", Paul G if your reading this you'll have to let me know, what your dad had eaten at half time, one pressumes, according to French it must have been a baby Giraffe or something to gain three stones in such a short time.

Murphy finally bowed out of commentary all together when one of the earlier Astra channels called "ScreenSport" went belly up. Here on a Monday night Keith Macklin (a good commentator IMO) and Murphy commentated on French RL1 games, It was an absolute joy to behold listening to the ever eloquent Murphy reciting the names of the players and the teams.

In my opinion a great character and a great player. Saw him many times and marvelled at his skill. Wish we had his ilk in the current English team. Used every trick in the book but just within the laws. Talked to his immediate opponent to put him off his game. But skilful -YES.

.

[Trojan]

They had to change the rules because of Murphy. In the 1966 CC Final, Wigan's hooker had gone off injured and in those days it was necessary to have an experienced hooker to win the ball at the scrum. With Wigan in possession, Murphy persistently stood offside, the ref penalised him and gave Wigan a penalty - they kicked the ball into touch and at the subsequent scrum Saints got the ball back. The penalty and tap was introduced to prevent this sort of thing. I personally think flouting the spirit of the rules is just as bad as breaking the actual rules. It's true Murphy was a good player, but IMO he should have been cited on more than one occasion with the catch all of "bringing the game into disrepute" Either he'd have packed it in or eventually got a sine die ban.

[Jimmy B]

Lets not forget the crash tackle / forearm smash he delivered to Dave Hartley - certainly one of the worst tackles I have seen at Wembley. Without doubt a sending off offence. Wonder how many matches that sort of tackle would recieve to-day.

[Andrew Vause]

a wigan fan once told me that when Murphy was coach at Wigan, he hit maurice lindsey over the head with the telephone. so he's not all bad.

That story rings a bell.