Saint and Sinner

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 little 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, outspokne newspaper columnist and now holder of the OBE, whose love for rugby league has never dwindled. Here he recalls the men he played for and against in the past, airs his views on the game of the nineties, and considers the influence of the Australians, Murdoch Money and player-contracts. The rough mixes with the rough and Murphy shows that, as always, he has plenty to say about it.