His first junior steps had been with Hearts of Beath at Hill of Beath before at nineteen a season at Dundee and just one appearance and that drop in 1924 to the Second Division to The Pars for three seasons. But in 1926 it was to lead to promotion and, whilst the next two campaigns were to be a struggle, leading to relegation in 1927, he had attracted enough attention to be at twenty-four signed by Hearts and personally stay up. But he did so now as a married, to a Dunfermline-girl, Mary Spowart, with whom he would have three children. 

In fact the elder Herd would remain at Tynecastle for a decade and, although they were to be trophy-less, he in 1934 at the age of thirty-one would be awarded a first and single cap. However, when he reached thirty-four he returned to Fife, to Methil's East Fife, for the two seasons until war intervened. And such was his impact that in 1938 The Fife reached the Cup Final, drawing the first game with him captaining the side and winning the replay, the first Second Division club ever to take the trophy, albeit for that second game he was side-lined by injury.  

During the Second War the adult Herds would remain in Methil but it seems their two boys had been sent to Australia and when hostilities were over the decision was taken in 1946 to join them. The family would settle in the Melbourne suburb of Preston, where father would work as a metal finisher/panel beater and coach the game including a stint with the Victoria State team. And it would be there too that at the age of eighty-one in 1984 he would be pass away Mary outliving him by nine years, dying in 1993, both to be buried in the local Fawkner Memorial Park.