Recollections of Keith Murdoch

One of the most visited postings on my blog are the ones on Keith Murdoch. Here are some updated jottings on Keith. (photo right)

Keith Murdoch was my hero when I was a teenager. I was 17 and he must have been 23 when I got the chance to play with him. I must of played about five games with him that season, 1966.

He had represented Otago as a 20-year-old prop in 1964, then had a season with Ponsonby and one with Marist in Napier before returning to Dunedin. That was when I played with him. He was somewhat unfit and so he decided to start the season off playing for Zingari Richmond in the Dunedin second grade competition.
I remember that cold Otago winter of 1966, when we played on a frost covered ground against Eastern at Waikouwai-iti. I was a wing three quarter and my job was to throw the ball in at line out time. There was something unsettling about throwing into Murdoch, a hulk of a man who physical presence was magnetic. The first time I threw the ball in, it was crooked. Murdoch glared at me. The second time I threw it in off centre. Murdoch grabbed me by the shirt and said, “Next time throw the fuckin’ ball in straight.” The threatening look in his deep eyes convinced me to improve instantaneously, I improved and never threw the ball in crooked again to Keith Murdoch. I was 17 and not fully physically developed, and a couple of the opposition forwards picked on me and roughed me up. Murdoch must have seen it and said, “next time someone hits you, give me his number.”
A few minutes later, a prop with No. 14 on his back, punched me in a tackle. I looked at Keith Murdoch, and said " No. 14.” A few minutes later No. 14 was on the ground, half conscious, and cowering. No one picked on me for the remainder of the game. I had found a grumpy Godfather.

We had a great after match function, and after consuming huge quantifies of beer, Keith offered to drive me home in his olive green Mini Minor. Imagine a 130 kg hulk of muscle getting into a small mini. About 30 mins later, he didn't quite make a corner somewhere south of Cherry Farm and the car slid off the road into a grassy ditch. I offered to help Keith manhandle the car back onto the road. He glared at me with disdain. "Leave it alone boy" he said, "I'll do it myself." With that said, Murdoch lifted, bounced, wrenched and slid the mini up the side of a a 3 metre ditch, skewed it onto the road, straightened the car up like a city slicker straightening his tie, and wiped his hand on the back of his tight shorts.

We stopped at the Ravensborne pub for a few more jugs and Murdoch gave me a man-to-boy talk about how to play rugby.

A schoolmate, Nev Cleveland,told me recently he was a neighbour to the Murdoch family in Ravensbourne. Nev was the milk boy and remembers delivering 12 pints of milk to Keith's home daily. He told me that one Sunday morning about 7 am, he met Keith 'as pissed as a fart' crawling home on hands and knees. We both recalled Keith's older brother Bruce, a bricklayer, who was also a fine rugby player.

The famous Peter Bush photograph of Keith Murdoch leaving his hotel in Cardiff after being requested to leave the team.

I also have pleasant memories of drinking after games we played at Montecillo and walking through the southern cemetery, or driving to the nearest pub at the southern end of the Oval.. Wyndam Barkman, Frosty are some of the other players who come to mind. Murdoch was generally kind and protective of his friends and a pleasure to drink with. He choose his words carefully and added colour and zest to conversations.

Murdoch's career ended controversially and mysteriously. He scored the All Blacks' only try in their 1972 win against Wales in Cardiff, but later the same night was involved in a fracas and was sent home from the tour by All Black management, reputedly after pressure was brought to bear by the home rugby unions. Rather than returning to rugby in New Zealand, Murdoch virtually went into hiding, quitting his home and his sport and moving to the Australian outback where he has lived ever since.

A rare appearance ... Keith Murdoch in 2001. Photo: Getty Images


A play Finding Murdoch by Margot McRae, which premiered at Downstage Theatre, Wellington in June 2007, is about McRae's tracking down of Murdoch. She says of the media frenzy when he punched a security guard that "If there's a baddie it would be the media."


Writer John Haviland: wrote this about him " In 1979, Murdoch paid a brief visit to New Zealand, and was seen saving the life of a drowning toddler, by giving the child mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for four minutes."
see link

Murdoch was often the subject of rugby talk, some of it about his not inconsiderable rugby ability, much of it about his behaviour. A favourite story was of Keith Murdoch towing a car up a Dunedin hill, clasping the tow rope in his teeth! I could believe it !

Selected for the South African tour of 1970, Murdoch, according to esteemed rugby writer TP McLean, suffered an ankle injury during a fight with friends of Springbok Piet Visagie. He was out of action for 10 games.
Later, his passion for the game and his unbelievable strength were emphasised when he played the fourth test in pain, then afterwards he was immediately whisked away to be operated on for appendicitis!

I am happy he is living a peaceful life in outback Australia.

Now I look like Keith Murdoch.

McKerrow, your blog is superb. You are a born storyteller. And you look like Murdoch!

You would have loved the story on One News yesterday about the Runanga league player who last weekend must have kinghit a rival player, then kicked the bugger when he was on the ground. Apparently a spectator posted video footage of the incident on Youtube.  Of course there has been a massive outcry with critics saying the eight week ban on the hitter was too soft. The response from locals was understated and wonderful. The West Coast league president reckoned it was all a bit of fuss about nothin, and Runanga's captain just scratched his head and said the hitter was a decent bloke and the whole team was standing behind him. Long live kiwi country cousins!

Okay, so your blog is now on my favourites list. Top stuff.

Cheers
Woodsy

Mysterious Murdoch found and on stage.

Margot McRae finds Keith Murdoch

A play about the destructive power of the media.

You probably think I have a fixation on Keith Murdoch, but when you've played rugby with an impressive gentle giant, and he ingloriously gets sent home in 1972 from Wales after scoring the All Black's only try, you want to promote the man. Hats off to Margaret McRae for finding him and bringing his story to the stage.


Forget disgraced or notorious, the adjectives usually associated with Keith Murdoch.

In a play being written about his expulsion from the 1972-3 All Black rugby tour of Britain, the former test frontrower will come across as "heroic".

Finding Murdoch is Aucklander Margot McRae's account of the media storm that engulfed the player when he punched a security guard in a Cardiff hotel.

The late-night incident came just hours after the Otago prop had scored the All Blacks' only try in their 19-16 win over Wales at Cardiff Arms Park.

Murdoch was sent home but did not make it back to New Zealand. He got as far as Australia, where he has lived in self-imposed exile.

He hit the headlines again in 2001, when he was cleared of involvement in the death of an Aboriginal man at a remote mine in the Northern Territory.

But that episode apart, he has been able to keep himself largely out of the public spotlight over the past three decades.

The play's storyline ends in 1990, when McRae, then working on the rugby series Mud and Glory, tracked Murdoch down in rural Queensland.

Despite her background as journalist, McRae says the play is as much about the "destructive power" of the media as it is an account of the Murdoch tale.

"If there's a baddie, it would be the media really, and I was part of the media," she said. "I was a reporter, so I'm trying to be honest."

She recalled that Murdoch attracted a "frenzy" of attention when he was ordered home.

"There were terrible cartoons and awful headlines about him."

Murdoch's unyielding reaction had been to maintain his silence, a stance McRae saw as a sign of his dignity.

"That's my impression now," she said. "He was heroic because he didn't talk. He was heroic because he didn't ask for sympathy.

"He didn't seek any media glorification. That's what I mean by heroic. He wasn't going to play a media game. He had his own rules."

McRae contrasted that with present-day reality television "where you ask people to come in and be manipulated and made fools of".

McRae was able to speak to Murdoch for about 45 minutes when she located him in the Queensland town of Tully.

He refused to be interviewed on camera, but allowed himself to be filmed by McRae's crew.

"I tried to get as much information out of him as I could, which was like getting blood from a stone," she said. "But he was absolutely affable and pleasant. He was very happy in himself, it seemed to me.

"He didn't tell me too much because he said, 'Why should I? I don't need to tell my story to anyone'."

The next day, McRae said, she did something she regretted. She went to get more shots of him at the farm where he worked.

When she called out to him as he was working away with a machete, he ran off.

"I was just doing my job, but I didn't like what I had done," she said. "I thought it was unfair on him and I felt guilty about it."

McRae said her meeting with Murdoch remained the incident that she remembered the most from her days as a journalist.

"I worked on a lot of documentaries and other stories, but that one definitely sticks in the mind," she said. "It won't go away."

Finding Murdoch went through an Auckland Theatre Company workshop last month.

McRae, who is making amendments to the script, had her "fingers crossed" that the finished product would find its way on to the stage.

See article I wrote on Keith Murdoch

Finding Keith Murdoch

Finding Murdoch

A week ago today, I wrote a short article on Keith Murdoch, New Zealand's mystery rugby man. I gave a first hand account of playing rugby with him. A friend alerted me to a women who tracked him down in outback Australia and based on their talks, Downstage Theatre in Wellington staged a play about big Keith Murdoch in June-July this year. This is a man who will be etched in stone, silver, gold and on the screen, for just wanting to be a good Kiwi bloke, a man who liked his space.

I only wish I could have seen big Keith on the stage, with barrel chest, arms folded and legs like tree trunks, biceps bulging, and his trade mark short shorts that showed his manliness. And in his hand the rugby ball was the size of a tennis ball. How did he ever fit in a mini minor ?

Finding Murdoch, Wellington, 16 Jun 2007 - 14 Jul 2007
Tragic Lost Son of NZ Rugby Found
World premiere kicks off at Downstage about the infamous ex-All Black Keith Murdoch and the woman who managed to hunt him down.

Margot McRae's account of the media storm that engulfed the player when he punched a security guard in 1972 sheds new light on the greatest tragedy of NZ rugby.

A rare photo of Keith Murdoch taken in 2001.



The late-night incident happened just hours after the Otago prop scored the All Blacks only try in their 19-16 win over Wales at Cardiff Arms Park. Murdoch was ordered home in disgrace - the only All Black ever expelled from the team - but never made it back to his home or to the press waiting for him. He got as far as Australia where he has been living in exile ever since.

Nobody really knows what happened that night but many have tried to find out.

Margot McRae managed to track Murdoch down and Finding Murdoch is her fictional account of the search for the All Black legend, how far the media will go to get a story and how it affects the real people behind the photos and interviews.

Director
Geraldine Brophy

Designer
Tony Rabbit

Featuring
Cohen Holloway
Danielle Mason
Simon Vincent

When: Saturday, 16 Jun 2007 - Saturday, 14 Jul 2007
Times: Various
Where: Downstage Theatre, Cambridge Terrace, Wellington

Keith Murdoch Mystery

Keith Murdoch (left) was my hero when I was a teenager. I was 17 years old and he must have been 23 when I got the chance to play with him. I must of played about five games with him that season, 1966.

He had represented Otago as a 20-year-old prop in 1964, then had a season with Ponsonby and one with Marist in Napier before returning to Dunedin. That was when I played with him. He was somewhat unfit and so he decided to start the season off playing for Zingari Richmond in the Dunedin second grade competition.

I remember that cold Otago winter of 1966, when we played on a frost covered ground against Eastern at Waikouwai-iti. I was a wing three quarter and my job was to throw the ball in at line out time. There was something unsettling about throwing it to Murdoch, a hulk of a man who physical presence was magnetic. The first time I threw the ball in, it was crooked. Murdoch glared at me. The second time I threw it in off centre. Murdoch grabbed me by the shirt and said, “Next time throw the fuckin’ ball in straight.” The threatening look in his deep eyes convinced me to improve instantaneously, I improved and never threw the ball in crooked again to Keith Murdoch. I was 17 and not fully physically developed, and a couple of the opposition forwards picked on me and roughed me up. Murdoch must have seen it and said, “next time someone hits you, give me his number.”

A few minutes later, a prop with No. 14 on his back, punched me in a tackle. I looked at Keith Murdoch, and said " No. 14.” A few minutes later No. 14 was on the ground, half conscious, and cowering. No one picked on me for the remainder of the game. I had found a grumpy Godfather.

We had a great after match function, and after consuming huge quantifies of beer, Keith offered to drive me home in his olive green Mini Minor. Imagine a 130 kg hulk of muscle getting into a small mini. About 30 mins later, he didn't quite make a corner somewhere south of Cherry Farm and the car slid off the road into a grassy ditch. I offered to help Keith manhandle the car back onto the road. He glared at me with disdain. "Leave it alone boy" he said, "I'll do it myself." With that said, Murdoch lifted, bounced, wrenched and slid the mini up the side of a a 3 metre ditch, skewed it onto the road, straightened the car up like a city slicker straightening his tie, and wiped his hand on the back of his tight shorts.

The famous Peter Bush photographs of Keith Murdoch leaving his hotel in Cardiff

We stopped at the Ravensborne pub for a few more jugs and Murdoch gave me a man-to-boy talk about how to play rugby.

A schoolmate, Nev Cleveland,told me recently he was a neighbour to the Murdoch family in Ravensbourne. Nev was the milk boy and remembers delivering 12 pints of milk to Keith's home daily. He told me that one Sunday morning about 7 am, he met Keith 'as pissed as a fart' crawling home on hands and knees. We both recalled Keith's older brother Bruce, a bricklayer, who was also a fine rugby player.

I also have pleasant memories of drinking after games we played at Montecillo, and walking through the southern cemetery, or drivinng to the closet pub at the southern end of the Oval. Wyndam Barkman, Frosty are some of the other players who come to mind. Murdoch was generally kind and protective of his friends and a pleasure to drink with. He choose his words carefully and added colour and zest to conversations. I am happy he is living a peaceful life in outback Australia.

Murdoch was often the subject of rugby talk, some of it about his not inconsiderable rugby ability, much of it about his behaviour.

A favourite story was of Keith Murdoch towing a car up a Dunedin hill, clasping the tow rope in his teeth! I could believe it !

 He also mentioned to me that he liked being alone and enjoyed his own company. Murdoch went on to live a large part of his life alone. It is a mysterious story.

Murdoch toured Wales in 1972 and achieved notoriety after scoring the opening try of the first Test.

Following the match he argued with the tour manager, assaulted a security guard at the tourist's hotel and was promptly dispatched on the first plane home.

Well known writer David Haviland writes in his blog posting "In 1979, Murdoch paid a brief visit to New Zealand, and was seen saving the life of a drowning toddler, by giving the child mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for four minutes."

He never reached Auckland and instead made the Australian outback his home where he lived in relative obscurity until the discovery of Kumanjai Limerick's body last October. Then the mystery man hit the media in 2001.

Left, a rare photo of keith Murdoch in Australia in 2001


BBC - 24 June 2001

According to the Times newspaper, Keith Murdoch, the former All Black forward who was sent home early from the 1972-3 tour of the British Isles, is wanted for questioning over the murder of an Aboriginal man in the remote Northern Territory.

The Dunedin-born Murdoch, already a controversial and mysterious figure, was dismissed from the All Black tour for attacking a security guard in Cardiff.

Instead of returning to New Zealand, he disembarked in Singapore and travelled to Darwin under an assumed name, before losing himself in the outback.

One New Zealand journalist who traced Murdoch to a logging camp in the 1970s was allegedly threatened and left in haste.

Murdoch was not heard of again until an inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Limerick was held on 15 June. It was adjourned until next month.

'No stopping'

The outback community where Murdoch has lived for 10 years is the remote copper-mining town of Tennant Creek.

It is little more than a dot on the 1,900-mile Stuart Highway through central Australia. The Lonely Planet Guide advises travellers not to go there.

So complete has been Murdoch's disappearance that police trying to trace him have had to issue photographs from the 1970s.

Locals, however, say he is now a grey-haired 57-year-old, still with a massive physique and by all accounts feared by the Aboriginal community in a place of simmering racial tensions.

Murdoch, who was known as a loner, played one Test apiece against South Africa, Australia and Wales.

Break-in

The Northern Territory coroner heard evidence that Limerick, a 20-year-old alcoholic, broke into Murdoch's house on 6 October last year.

The inquest was told that Limerick had burgled the house at least twice before.

On the night in question he was allegedly heard by a neighbour pleading not to be "bashed".

Limerick was reportedly taken to Noble's Nob, a disused mine near the town, around 6 October.

He was reportedly seen there alive but disorientated. He decomposed body was found about three weeks later.

Murdoch was questioned, but not charged. He left town soon after the body was discovered and there is now a territory wide search for him as a potentially crucial inquest witness.

It seems the mystery of Keith Murdoch continues.

Keith Murdoch was a man of principles and I know he would never have killed any man. Defended himself, yes. Read what a women journalist wrote about him some years later and was so impressed she wrote a play about him.http://davidhaviland.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/whatever-happened-to-keith-murdoch/