Murphy's Mob (Puffin Books)

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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… A year later he appeared alongside Hollywood star Robert Mitchum in Wrath of God, striking up a friendship that lasted until Mitchum’s death in 1997. 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 ] Dunmore United was owned by pop star Rasputin Jones (played by Terence Budd), who was coming towards the end of his pop career and decided to sink his cash into the struggling club. He was very much a hands-on owner of not only the club, but also Outer Space – the amusement arcade where many of the kids congregated and spent all their money and where a lot of the action took place, especially with rival fans from the Town. And so went the opening theme tune to one of my favourite childhood programmes and one of my favourite football related dramas ever – MURPHY’S MOB.

Murphy's Mob is a British children's television series, created and written by Brian Finch which was produced and directed by David Foster for Central Television, and screened in the UK on ITV for four series between 1982 and 1985. The theme tune was sung by Gary Holton, of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet fame. For those of you who remember Wurzel and the series as fondly as myself, we have a treat in store, as AFTN caught up with Lewis Stevens who played Wurzel and chatted to him about his time on the series and what he’s been doing since. You can read that HERE. Wurzel’ Glossop was one of the main, and most memorable characters, from the ITV children’s TV show Murphy’s Mob. Described as a keen footballer, Ken also regularly appeared in goal for Waterman’s celebrity football team which played charity matches across the country. ‘Leslie’s most famous son’Policeman’s son 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.”

Paying tribute, fellow Leslie resident, actor and playwright Micheal Kelly described Ken as “Leslie’s most famous son”.

Ashes to be returned to Leslie

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. As a teenager growing up in Thatcher’s Scotland of the 1980’s, you needed as much joyous TV escapism as you could get and it didn’t come much better than rushing home from school twice a week to watch Murphy’s Mob, to see their latest scrapes and escapades, which of course were always more exciting than your own! 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. If tonight's momentum can be maintained over the month's to come then Gary Holton should get a second shot at the kind of success that eluded his last, turbulent incarnation.

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. 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. With some irony, in the wake of Straw Dogs, Hutchison’s character rescues Paula Pritchett’s mute American Indian from a gang rape. The actor found a lifelong friend in Mitchum but failed to endear himself to other cast members – or to Hollywood studio executives. 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. The ambiguity of the first rape is given context by the second rape,” declared the British Board of Film Classification in 2002, “which now makes it quite clear that sexual assault is not something that Amy [Susan George] ultimately welcomes.”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. The mentioning of Wurzel here brings me to my third most memorable and my favourite character from the series. For me, the star of the show. 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. 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. 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!

AFTN: WHY DO YOU THINK THERE’S NEVER BEEN A DVD RELEASE OF THE SERIES? DO YOU THINK THERE EVER WILL BE ONE? His last screen role, as a prison inmate making claims of brutality by wardens, was in The Bill in 1999. Ken Hutchison, who has died aged 72, was an actor best known for taking tough-guy roles on screen – and enjoying a hard-living, hard-drinking lifestyle off it. The single gave Gerry Marsden a first in British recording history, by becoming the first person ever to top the charts with two versions of the same song.The BBFC awarded Straw Dogs an X certificate only after cuts were made to a rape scene in which Susan George’s former boyfriend (Del Henney), inflicts a violent assault on her which after initial resistance appears to become consensual, after which she is raped again by Hutchison’s character as the first rapist holds her down, her screams leaving audiences in no doubt that she is not giving her consent. 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. 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. Dancing at a party one evening with Rita Hayworth, who was taking her last film role in The Wrath of God, he expressed surprise at her dancing skills. “Well, after all, I have danced in movies with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire,” she retorted.