BOOKS on Rugby League legends are invariably a rivetting read, particularly when the subject is a cult figure and arguably St Helens' most celebrated sporting son.
Take a bow Alexander James Murphy OBE. His whose autobiography 'Saint and Sinner' aptly describes the homespun scrum-half from Thatto Heath, who adorned Knowsley Road for a decade after signing for £80 on his 16th birthday in 1955.
Dubbed 'Murph the Mouth' by friend and foe alike and no stranger to controversy, RL Hall of Fame member and Lance Todd trophy winner Alex typically pulls no punches in his 190-page masterpiece 'ghosted' by journalist Peter Wilson, and boasting memory-jerking photographs.
'Saint and Sinner' is a mirror image of AJM's 40-plus years in Rugby League because -- so to speak -- it is all there beginning, inevitably, with his eyeball-to-eyeball clash with Wigan chairman Maurice Lindsay.
Captain Alex's rift with Saints . . . Harry Cook . . . life at Leigh, Warrington, Salford, Wigan and Huddersfield . . . Eric Clay . . . Vinty . . . Precky . . . Holman . . . Wembley . . . Hynes . . . Murdoch . . . contracts . . . RAF . . . one could go on, and Murphy certainly did!
And who else would switch Tom Van Vollenhoven to left wing in his best-ever thirteen, and make no bones about naming himself in the number seven jersey?
No self-respecting fan from St Helens to Sydney, Castleford to Carcassonne or Whitehaven to Wollongong will want to put down the compelling 'Saint and Sinner' until its well-crafted pages have been thoroughly digested.
An absolute snip at just £9.99, Player of the Millennium Murphy's highly-readable tome is now on sale. It is produced by Mainstream Publishing, 7 Albany Street, Edinburgh EH1 3UG, telephone 0131 557 2959, fax 0131 556 8720.
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