THE latest in Cowdenbeath football history guru's Hometown Heroes series is John Murphy and was to become a renowned half-back for Cowden and many other sides.

John Murphy was born at Reading Room Row, Hill of Beath, on March 11 1935. He played for the school teams at St Bride’s and St Columba’s schools in the town and then had a few games with Cowdenbeath Royals. John was just fifteen when he joined his local side and Cowden farmed him out to Kelty Rangers with Johnny Knox.

At the time, John was a left winger. In 1952, he was sent to the Lothians and turned out for Bonnyrigg Rose around the same time as another young hopeful, Tommy Connery, who some time later was to find greater fame in films using his middle name of Sean!

John also had a stint with Crossgates Primrose and playing at centre forward his goals fired them through to the Scottish Junior Cup quarter final.

Right from his early days, John Murphy stood out as a man with steely hard determination – he was soon nicknamed Basher. Little wonder then that he also found time to turn out for Dunfermline Royals ice hockey team!

He made his debut for Cowden in 1954 and was a regular in 1954/55 in his favoured left half berth. John then was called up to serve in the RAF at RAF Padgate and in Holland. He trained over there with Sparta Rotterdam but couldn’t get a work permit to play. He only managed 4 appearances in the next two seasons for Cowden though until his service days ended.

1957 to 1959 was Basher’s heyday at Central Park. John was a ferocious tackler and was unwilling to even countenance defeat. He was also a constructive player on the ball and was a vital member of the Cowden line up.

In season 1957/58, he was Cowden skipper and also ‘the penalty king’ given his reliability from the spot. The 12 goals he netted in that campaign was to be his best ever return.

Basher ultimately though became frustrated at Cowden’s failure to make real progress and after inspiring the Blues' qualification for the League Cup semi-final with a 2 legged win over East Fife, he was transferred to Queen of the South. Workington had previously had a 4 figure bid turned down.

John was transferred to Queen's in a swap deal which brought his old colleague John Knox back to Cowden along with Tommy Ewing. His status at Palmerston remains undimmed to this day.

As the Queens’ history put it ‘Murphy came onto the park for each game utterly convinced that his team was going to win, and he made a particular point of impressing his conviction on the opposing forward line. Every tackle was made with grim determination, he was often in trouble with referees, but when his career was prematurely ended by injury Queens suffered a serious loss’. John played in over 200 league games for the Doonhamers and also contributed many vital goals including goals v both Rangers and Celtic.

‘Father’ Murphy was his Dumfries nickname and he enjoyed many memorable days down in the south west. In 1965/66, John suffered the first bad injury of his career when he broke his leg in a match v Dumbarton (a team he not long before had scored a hat-trick against).

He did make a comeback but was released by Queens in April 1967 and elected to hang up his boots. He was a joiner and then went to work in Lochgelly at Andrew’s Antennas.

John nowadays still lives in Cowdenbeath. At Central Park today we sometimes see hardy players but old timers still chuckle when they recall John Murphy in his pomp.