Saint And Sinner: The Autobiography of a Rugby League Legend

Nobody has ever been able to ignore Alex Murphy. In a glittering rugby league career stretching over forty years – from schoolboy days playing with St Helens, to international success for Great Britain, and years of glory as player, coach and manager of a host of high-profile clubs including Wigan and Warrington – fame and controversy have always been present: Murphy’s row with Wigan chairman and one-time friend Maurice Lindsay, when he was accused of trying to strangle him with his own telephone cord; the time Syd Hines head-butted him at Wembley, believing Murphy had taken a dive to get him sent off; his two tours, including the 1958 ‘Battle of Brisbane’, and how he ‘spat the dummy’, costing himself a third tour. . . All this, and a further fund of tales from the tough world of rugby league, is given Murphy’s unique treatment in this uncompromising autobiography. SAINT AND SINNER is the tale of how a liittle man reached the summit of his sport, and helped other little men along the way. The cocky kid – youngest ever to tour with Great Britain, who could have chosen professional football as a career ‘if it hadn’t been too soft’ – is known to millions today as Murph the Mouth: after-dinner speaker, TV commentator, outspoken newspaper columnist and now holder of the OBE, whose love for rugby league has never dwindled.