Browse Sections

• Macclesfield Town FC
• Local football
• Local cricket
• Golf

Murphy’s moving on

20/ 6/2007

JOHN Murphy will not be a Macclesfield Town player next season.

'Big John' has informed the club that he will not be taking up the deal that was offered to him this summer.

The former Blackpool hitman, who came to the Moss Rose on a loan deal in October, made his move a permanent one in January when the Seasiders agreed to cancel his contract.

He made his debut in a home defeat by Mansfield and scored the first of his nine goals against Hartlepool United in the win that earned the Silkmen their third-round tie at Chelsea.

Although his stay at Macc was brief, he will be best remembered for an historic strike in the game at Stamford Bridge last January.

His memorable 40th-minute goal in that game sent the Macclesfield following into ecstasy in one of the biggest matches in the club's history.

Murphy polled around a third of fans' votes to win the A-Line player of the month for January and was undoubtedly a big hit with the Moss Rose faithful, his size and power proving to be a handful for any opposition defenders.

The 30-year-old made a total of 32 appearances in a Macc shirt and was second to Kevin McIntyre in the club's goalscoring stakes last season, but his stay at the club is to end when his present contract expires on June 30.

Murphy, who scored more than a hundred times for Blackpool in his seven-and-a-half-year spell, is rumoured to have attracted interest from a number of other clubs, including Stockport County, Bury, Bradford City and Wrexham.