Player Profile

Once a very highly rated prospect at Aston Villa, making his Premier League debut not long after his 16th birthday and playing for England up to U20 level, Hepburn-Murphy’s career had been severely stymied by injury, including missing a full season of action in 2021/22 when on the books at Pafos in Cyprus before joining Swindon on deadline day in September 2022.

By the age of 24, he had played fewer than 70 league games over eight years, and predictably enough, his Town career was under two hours old when he limped off on his league debut against Grimsby in late September and was not seen again in a matchday squad until mid-December. After returning from that injury, he was initially used as a late substitute, making five consecutive sub appearances before being handed a start in Town’s 5-0 win at Grimsby.

Then came what could have been the fatal blow to his Town career: handed a start by new manager Jody Morris away at Newport County, Hepburn-Murphy made a bright start before seeing red for violent conduct after a bit of afters from a fairly innocuous looking incident involving Cameron Norman. Unusually, the opposition manager - in this case Graham Coughlan - thought Hepburn-Murphy had been treated harshly, but a three game ban followed that could easily have been more or less the end of his Town career.

Luckily for Hepburn-Murphy, Town didn’t exactly shine in his absence and he returned to the first team as soon as he was available for selection, this time against Harrogate at home. It took him eight minutes to score his first league goal for Town with a back-post header, and he added a second - perhaps fortuitously - later in the first half with a scuffed finish, which he took off the toes of Charlie Austin and was probably rather relieved to see trickle in at the far post with the goalkeeper unable to stop a ball moving almost glacially towards the line. Two goals in the bank, and his career was firmly back on track.

With Town’s form fairly poor under new manager Morris, Hepburn-Murphy attracted plenty of praise from fans for his high effort style of play: he brings an element of chaos to proceedings at all times and makes life difficult for defenders - and occasionally teammates - and is perhaps the most successful footballer ever to look like they’re off balance for more than 80% of their time on a field. There is an unconventional charm to his play though, and it proved effective enough over Town’s run-in as he put together an uninterrupted run of games that will no doubt have pleased him almost as much as the goals he scored. Town triggered a contract extension clause at the end of the season.

The 2023/24 season was remarkably similar for Hepburn-Muprhy: again he was in and out of the team through injury and form, and again he scored six goals across the campaign. The undoubted highlight of the season was a near unplayable performance against Tranmere in which he bagged a brace cutting in from the right wing, showing all of his trickery and occasional quality. Perhaps highlighting the somewhat strange selection policies of interim manager Gavin Gunning, RHM was rewarded for this performance by being dropped to the bench the following week against Harrogate, and started only one more game for the rest of the season.

Unfortunately, his performance against Tranmere proved the exception rather than the norm, and those two goals were the only goals he scored after 14th October, the end of Town’s impressive start to the season. Much more common were the 20 minute cameos where he would do a few good things and a few bad things, ultimately not affecting play a great deal. Only three of his 27 games across the season saw him finish 90 minutes of football, and it wasn’t a huge surprise that he was not offered a new contract when the end of the season came round. Hepburn-Murphy landed on his feet, signing a contract with League One Crawley Town after his release, joining STFC alumni Wollacott, Conroy and Darcy at Scott Lindsay’s side.

Playing Record

Senior

Career details

Club	Details
Aston Villa Aston Villa	2014 (youth) July 2016 (signed professional contract); released (rptd June 25th, 2020)
Cambridge United Cambridge United	January 11th, 2019 (loan); expired (2018/9)
Tranmere Rovers Tranmere Rovers	August 2nd, 2019 (loan); contract terminated (rptd January 31st, 2020)
Derby County Derby County	January 31st, 2020 (loan); expired (rptd June 25th, 2020)
Pafos Pafos	rptd July 15th, 2020 (unattached); released (2021/2)
Swindon Town Swindon	September 1st, 2022 (unattached); released (rptd May 2nd, 2024)