My Sporting Hero: Simon Murray on Ronnie O’Sullivan

In My Sporting Hero, a new podcast series from Nutmeg, footballers talk about the athletes who inspire them. Sometimes those sportsmen and women are also footballers. Sometimes not. You can listen to the audio on this post, on the podcast app of your choice (just search for ‘My Sporting Hero’) or enjoy the written version below.

This time on My Sporting Hero, our guest is Simon Murray.

Simon’s rich goalscoring run at Arbroath caught the eye of Dundee United, and he won the Scottish Challenge Cup with the Tangerines in 2017. After spells at Hibernian and South African outfit Bidvest Wits, he helped Queen’s Park achieve back-to back promotions with an average of one goal for every two appearances. He signed for Ross County and starred in their miraculous Premiership playoff final comeback against Partick Thistle in 2023. The powerful striker now wears the dark blue of his boyhood heroes Dundee. Last month, Simon scored the goal that gave the Dens Park men their first Scottish Cup victory over city rivals Dundee United since 1956.

Simon’s sporting hero is Ronnie ‘The Rocket’ O’Sullivan, snooker’s charismatic superstar who has won more trophies than just about anyone.

I grew up watching Ronnie, and he’s still playing, of course, at the highest level. He plays snooker in a different way to everyone else. He’s just fearless, and he’s a maverick character who does what he wants and says what he wants, but he can back it up with how he plays.

I still play my dad once a week, or as often as I can. He’s good and he plays three or four times a week, and when we play, we don’t speak too much around the table because we’d end up fighting because it’s so competitive! We hate losing to each other, and the loser has to pay for the hire of the table. He used to beat me regularly, but as I’ve got older, it’s become an even game between us. My dad played football too (for Montrose, Hibernian and Forfar), and he would play snooker with his team-mates after training. We would watch snooker together on television when I was growing up, and it’s mostly because of my dad that I got into snooker.