Murphy's Mob (Puffin Books)

Product Information

LS: I had a great time for the whole 4 years we made the show. It was an amazing experience and I really enjoyed it. It was great to have that opportunity to get so much TV acting experience and to work with some great adult actors. I was also interested in the ‘behind the scenes’, so loved just hanging around and watching what was going on.

Holton was frontman with the Heavy Metal Kids for most of their five year career, prior to their official break-up last year. SInce then, he's been sorting out his future plans and attempting to get it together with various musicians while keeping the wolf from the door by taking several small film roles and TV ads. Paying tribute, fellow Leslie resident, actor and playwright Micheal Kelly described Ken as “Leslie’s most famous son”.

The Sweeney

Ken Hutchinson, a Scot, who played Dunmore’s downtrodden manager Mac Murphy was tremendous. Snarly and an Alex Ferguson in the making – mannerisms wise at least, if not in terms of managerial success! Gerry Marsden of Gerry & The Pacemakers had decided to make a charity record to aid the families of the victims of the disaster. The re-recording of the hit song "You'll Never Walk Alone", already a football anthem for Liverpool F.C. supporters, entered the UK charts at No. 4, and reached Number 1 on 1 June 1985. Cassidy provided a lot of the show’s most memorable comedic scenes and provided almost a comedy double act in his scenes with his foil, policeman’s son ‘Wurzel’ Glossop. There was football. There was fun. There were fights. There were football rivalries – meaning football fights! There were girls. There was snogging. There was despair. But most of all, there was great TV.

In particular the show focussed on a group of long suffering young fans as they overcame obstacles to set up their own Junior Supporters Club and clubhouse in the stadium, whilst also following their day to day lives and misadventures, in school, after school and of course, on a Saturday afternoon.The Crowd was a "supergroup" formed specifically to produce a charity record for the Valley Parade football disaster, in which 56 people died on 11 May 1985. The group consisted of singers, actors, television personalities and others. LS: I’ve been really pleased with the reaction to the clips that are up on YouTube – it seems to have stirred a lot of memories. I think Wurzel was a likeable character with a good heart – he was always trying to persuade the adults to do things, but in a way that made them think it was their idea. He was often getting into scrapes and had some good comedy moments, so I guess he was good fun to watch. I haven’t been acting much, but I did dabble with stand-up comedy again last year, which was fun. I do miss acting, so would love to do something else again at some point… Of the kid actors, Boxer was meant to be the main star. Played by Keith Jayne, who had been a star previously as the lead in ITV’s Stig of the Dump, Boxer was joined by characters such as Mugsy Moran, Pacman, The Hulk, Prof and girls Charlie and Hannah.

Broadcast on ITV from 1982-1985, running to four seasons and over 50 episodes, Murphy’s Mob was set around a struggling, fictional English Third Division Football Club called Dunmore United. He auditioned by reading from William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost – the only play he knew – and became an assistant stage manager and actor, soon treading the boards. Unusually, the combination of Hutchison’s hard-man reputation and a charm that often filtered through, led him to be cast as the brooding, tormented Heathcliff in the five-part 1978 BBC adaptation of Wuthering Heights. LS: Not much really. I did get noticed quite a bit when it was on (and got asked to sign a few autographs) – and very occasionally still do – but that was about it really. It gave me tremendous experience at an early age, so I guess I grew up a lot doing it.AFTN: THAT WOULD BE CERTAINLY BE EXCELLENT AND ENJOYABLE. WHAT IMPACT DID BEING A NATIONAL TEENAGE TV STAR HAVE ON YOUR LIFE? It’s strange to think that the show has never been released on video or DVD as, at the time, it was immensely popular and is often cited as the definitive children’s TV drama series, above even the likes of Grange Hill.

Wurzel was a much downtrodden upon character, who at times never seemed able to do anything right. He wasn’t the brightest kid in school, but he was certainly one of the wittiest, played in fine comic style by Lewis Stevens. After a few years he gravitated towards the West End where he met Peter O’Toole and a friendship was formed.” Curiously, he also starred in the children’s series Murphy’s Mob (1982-85) as Mac Murphy, manager of a struggling football club setting up a supporters’ club for juvenile fans. The series featured Ken Hutchison as Mac Murphy, who takes charge as manager of a struggling fictional Third Division football club, Dunmore United, and a group of young supporters of the club whose day-to-day troubles included attempts to set up a junior supporter's club and clubhouse within the stadium. [1] Cast [ edit ]AFTN: WHY DO YOU THINK THERE’S NEVER BEEN A DVD RELEASE OF THE SERIES? DO YOU THINK THERE EVER WILL BE ONE? This occasion being one of the first public try-outs prior to the new act's formal launching, judgements might be premature; allowances must be made and all that. Just the same, by the set's conclusion, it was a relieved Mr. Holton, who took his leave of a well won crowd...the audition had been passed. As a friend of Waterman and his partner, Rula Lenska, Ken lent the couple his house in Leslie to allow them to escape the media glare and pursuit by tabloid reporters. No matter what else I do, people always associate me with Dancer,” he told The Herald in 1989. “It’s frightening.”