Few who knew the young Denis Law from Aberdeen could have imagined that he would one day become the undisputed King of Scotland. How was it possible that such a weak, fragile kid – mocked for his scrawniness at school – could ever become one of Europe’s most feared strikers?
Andy Beattie, the Huddersfield Town manager in 1955, on first sighting of Law, aged 15, was disparaging towards the scout who had spotted him in Aberdeen and sent him south for a trial.
“I could hardly believe what I was looking at,” Beattie would say later. “This weak, puny kid appeared at the club, apparently with real football potential. I thought to myself, ‘who are they kidding’?”
Not only was the young Law as slender as a twig – and just as physically robust at the time – but a squint in his right eye meant his vision had also been impaired from a young age. This was the young boy who would go on to terrorise defences, first in England, then in Italy, and finally across all of Europe with Manchester United.
Law, by the time he was 20, was beginning to show what his game was about – splurges of goals and lightning reactions – and a series of record-breaking transfer fees would propel his career forward.
Manchester City took him off humble Huddersfield’s hands in 1960 for £55,000 – equivalent to almost £4 million today – when Law was 20, and then mighty Torino, for decades one of the huge brands of Italian football, lured him to Turin for £110,000, a huge sum, just 12 months later.
Law by this point was averaging a goal every other game and, with his troublesome eye fixed through an operation, the full force of his potential was unleashed. But in Italy there was another story. Law at Torino was joined by another prolific British striker, Joe Baker – beloved of Arsenal and Hibernian fans – and the pair of them shared an apartment and were followed everywhere by paparazzi.
One evening in February 1962 Baker lost control of the Alfa Romeo he was driving and crashed into a statue. Law stepped from the car virtually unscathed but the stricken Baker was in hospital for weeks with serious injuries, including a fracture to his face.
It was the tipping point for Law, who was already squabbling with his Italian club coach. He virtually walked out on Torino and Italian football, flying home to Aberdeen and then signing for Manchester United that summer for £115,000 – another British transfer record – and the start of 11 prolific seasons. But he was penitent about virtually leaving Baker in the lurch.
“I never quite forgave myself for what I did,” Law said later. “Poor Joe. We were great friends and club mates but I just had to get out of the club and come home. But not only did I walk out on Torino, I also walked out on Joe. It took me a long time to forgive myself for what I did.”
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Baker would sign for Arsenal that same summer and resume his own highly-successful career.
It was during those great years at Old Trafford, and simultaneously in the dark blue of Scotland, that Law patented his greatness. Lithe and brave, he could score for fun, with magical aerial ability and a fleetness of foot in the penalty area which made him the game’s ultimate predator.
Hugh McIlvanney, the late great sportswriter, who watched and reported on Law at his peak, said: “He was imperious, he was unstoppable. England at the time [throughout the 1960s] had great players and a World Cup winning team but few defenders knew how to stop Denis. His spring, his pace, his sheer venom for opportunity in the box made him just about without equal.”
Law was voted European Footballer of the Year in 1964 – an award later rechristened the Ballon D’Or – and one of his greatest moments came in Scotland’s strutting, contemptuous defeat of England – then the reigning world champions – at Wembley on April 15, 1967.
The highlights of those 90 minutes also reveal the way in which Law’s game was both all-round and, actually, befitting of the modern game. A showcase reel of the match which did the rounds of social media yesterday, showed Law passing, probing, intercepting and harassing England in a way that belonged not so much to 1967 British football as the game we know today.
It is sometimes the mark of the greatest footballers, that their game could fit any age. Law passed this test with sumptuous ease.
His Scotland career was just as prolific as it was as a Red Devil in Manchester – he scored 30 goals in 55 internationals – though the slight cruelty was that, by the time the 1974 World Cup finals came around, Law was past his best – and knew it – as Scotland participated in the finals in West Germany.
It was also on the final day of that 1973-74 domestic season that one of the unforgettable moments occurred in English league football, when Law, now with Manchester City for one final fling, scored with a back-heeled goal against Manchester United with just minutes remaining, United desperately trying to avoid relegation from the First Division.
Law believed that 81st minute goal would condemn United – he almost did not want the ball to go in – but as it transpired other results ensured that United were relegated in any case, even had they won.
Law was a Scottish patriot, with every ounce of cheek about it. He deliberately went out and played a long game of golf on the afternoon of July 30, 1966 when England were contesting the World Cup final.
“I had to get out, I couldn’t bear hearing that they had won,” he said years later.
Law’s death at 84 marks another significant staging-post in the passing of the great age of British football of the 1960s and 1970s. The top players back then had herostatus, feasted on by British football fans in the vivid new age of colour television. Few enhanced the visual excitement of the game – the sheer spectacle of it – like The Lawman.
