As the documentary ‘DENIS LAW – THE KING‘ (73 mins, 2003) draws to a close, several luminaries who have already extolled the talents of this wonderful footballer offer their final appraisals.
None, however, can top a claim made by the brilliant Brazilian Pele (who knew a thing or two about great players), repeated here by Sir Alex Ferguson:
‘Pele once said Denis Law was the only British player who would ever have got into one of the great Brazilian teams.’
As the great Eric Morecombe might have said, ‘there’s no answer to that‘ – and what the documentary makes clear is at his most magical and majestic there was no answer to Denis Law.
An entertaining watch, despite repeated showings of the same handful of goals, (although in the case of his strike for Manchester United against Leicester City in the 1963 FA Cup Final, it merely underlines composure and instinct of the highest order), the story benefits from being told, pretty much, by Law himself.
Reflecting on his life (to date) and extraordinary career, the journey begins with a happy, if impoverished childhood in the Scottish city of Aberdeen, through to the last goal he ever scored – recorded with his final kick in league football (and never has there been a more significant one).
Along the way Ferguson, Bobby Charlton, George Best, Sir Matt Busby, Nobby Stiles, Pat Crerand, Bob Wilson and Mike Summerbee offer their thoughts, Wilson emphasising the aura attached to a handful of 60s players’ whose greatness (Greaves, Law, Moore, Charlton, Banks, Best), transcended partisan loyalties.
‘People wanted to be able to say they’d seen Denis Law play,’ remarks former Arsenal goalkeeper Wilson, while Maine Road hero Summerbee focused his view across the city: ‘United would be getting 50-60 thousand in Old Trafford and I can guarantee most of them were there to see Denis.’
Born on 24 February 1940, the youngest of seven children and son of a trawler-man, Law goes on to reflect, ‘I didn’t really know my father due to the time he spent at sea.’
While acknowledging the austere times in which he grew up, there is recognition of community spirit and people sharing what they had – there was also, of course, football which Denis played ‘on the way to school, in the playground when we got there and then out in the street at night until it was dark.’
‘Denis was only picked for the school team once‘ says childhood friend George Geddes, ‘and put at left-back. But every time he got the ball would run down the field beating player after player. The teacher didn’t pick him again for being greedy with the ball.’
Greedy or not, his exceptional skills was spotted by Archie Beattie, whose brother Andy was the Scottish manager of Huddersfield Town of the (English) second division. On arriving for a trial at Leeds Road, 15-year-old Law, slight and wearing glasses – he would have a squint corrected during his four year stay at the club – looked nothing like a footballer, but first impressions proved remarkably deceptive.
‘Nobody at the club had ever seen anyone so good at that age,’ recalled future England World Cup winner Ray Wilson, a Huddersfield first-team player, ‘you couldn’t believe how quick and skilful he was.’
Making his senior debut at the age of 16 in December 1956, Law playing at inside-right, remembers having to learn some rudimentary lessons of professional football. ‘All of a sudden I’m playing against men,’ he says, ‘and soon discovered that if someone kicks you then you have to kick them back, which did lead to me having a few disciplinary problems early in my career.’
‘Denis wouldn’t allow anyone to kick him off the pitch,’ remarked Ferguson, ‘he wasn’t a particularly physical player in stature and was probably only about ten stone but played as if he was about 15 stone. He had wonderful ability, courage, daring, a bit of mischief – things we Scots appreciate.’
Tracked by Manchester United and Liverpool – ‘Sir Matt told me he had Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet at the time so didn’t pursue it, then I thought I might go to Liverpool with Bill Shankly, who’d been assistant manager at Huddersfield, but like us they were in the second division and couldn’t afford the fee.‘ While a Huddersfield player Law (18) also won the first of 55 Scotland caps, spread over an international career lasting 16 years.
When the move away from Leeds Road finally came it was to Manchester, but Maine Road and City, who in March 1960 paid a British record fee of £55,000 for his services. Helping City to avoid relegation from Division One at the end of the 1959-60 season, despite his continued good form (Law jovially suggesting he had left a better team behind at Huddersfield), they did no better than finish mid-table in 1960-61.
Yet such was his growing reputation, Italian club Torino bought him for £110,000 in the summer of 1961 (another record fee for a British player), their UK spending spree also extending to £75,000 for Hibs striker Joe Baker.
Of his spell in Italy, Law, 21 at the time, says, ‘I was in no doubt I wanted to go, there was the food, the wine, I was single at the time, the weather. The only downside was the football, which was very defensive. Lovely people off the field, but a very negative style of play on it.’
During his only season with Torino (scoring ten times in 27 games), he was selected to play for the Italian League against the Football League. Played at Old Trafford, the fixture brought Busby back on the scene.
‘Sir Matt asked me how things were going with Torino,’ explains Law, ‘and being honest said I hadn’t realised how much the Italian game was based on defence and that I wasn’t enjoying it. He said ‘we’ll be in touch’ and not long after I was signing for Manchester United.’
At £115,000 Manchester United paid more for a player than any British club had ever done before. ‘I was very fortunate they could pay that much as if they hadn’t I wouldn’t have been coming back.’ (For his part, Busby later said United would have paid twice what they did to sign Denis Law).
Joining a team still in transition after the Munich air disaster of 1958 when several members of an exciting, predominately young side had been killed, Law prospered with more space than he was afforded in Italy, only for United to flounder through the 1962-63 season.
‘To be fair we had an awful time and at one stage looked as if we might go down,’ he states, ‘I managed to score a few goals, but was still getting stick due to the size of the fee.’ Despite scoring over 20 league goals, which effectively kept them up, one of his most important was the winner in a 1-0 FA Cup semi-final victory over Southampton – the cup proving their saving grace.
With United in the unusual position of going into a major final as underdogs, Law opened the scoring (‘what unbelievable execution that was‘ remarked Ferguson), as they recorded a 3-1 success to lift their first post-Munich silverware.
Law returned to Wembley in October 1963 as part of a Rest of the World XI (their line-up including such masters as Yashin, Di Stefano, Puskas, Kopa, Euesbio and Gento), who faced England in a fixture to mark the centenary of the FA, Law scoring for the ‘Rest’ in a 2-1 defeat. Back at club level, things really began to stir with introduction into the United team of a seventeen-year-old Belfast-born genius named George Best.
‘When I went to United I was just in awe of him,’ said Best, ‘he had started the raised arm goal celebration and holding the cuff of his shirt. He was electric over ten yards, but his passing skills and heading ability were out of this world. Denis was already the ‘King of Old Trafford’ no doubt about it.’
With Best assimilated into a team that included talisman Munich survivor Bobby Charlton and by now Crerand and Stiles, a golden age was dawning at Old Trafford, built on the ‘Holy Trinity‘ of Charlton, Law and Best – thus began the greatest story ever to start with ‘an Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman.’
‘Winning the FA Cup was great,’ says Law, ‘but what we really wanted was to win the league and get back into the European Cup. Winning that was what Matt Busby had set his heart on – heightened of course by what happened at Munich.’
With their ‘Three Musketeers‘ to the fore, Manchester United were producing arguably the most attractive football yet seen in England during the post-war era, the dazzle in their attacking play securing the league title in 1965 and 1967 – and with the flamboyance came a new generation of captivated followers.
During this time Law was imperious; his 39 goals in 1964-65 was followed by 24 and 25 in the seasons that followed, while a haul of 46 in 1963-64 brought the accolade of being the first (and so far only) Scot to be named European Footballer of the Year. Such was the preeminence of the ‘Holy Trinity,’ Charlton (1966) and Best (1968) would also wear the crown before the decade was out.
‘I can’t think of another British team who’ve had three players of that stature,’ remarks Ferguson – with Best remembering the times, thus:
‘Football in the 60s was tremendously exciting. You knew there was going to be lots of goals – nil-nil draws were a rarity. For me it was a great feeling to be in a side with so much confidence. Every time we went out we felt we were going to win – and most of the time we did.’
As one point in the ‘Golden Triangle‘ Law reflects, ‘people thought what we did was off the cuff but there was method and understanding. On the other hand when you have players with the individual brilliance of Bobby and Bestie things happen.’
The league title triumph of 1967 brought another crack at the European Cup, United making comfortable progress through the rounds while at the same time going neck and neck with neighbours City in a race for the Championship. After conceding the title by a whisker they progressed to the European Cup Final, meeting Portuguese giants Benfica at Wembley on May 29, 1968 – a 4-1 extra-time victory the culmination of a ten-year fight-back from the devastation of Munich.
Law, however, was absent on the night Manchester United became the first English club to win the European Cup, missing due to recurrence of a knee injury that sidelined him for the last six weeks of the campaign.
But in April 1967 he had shared a Wembley day of destiny, only with Scotland team-mates – scoring a typically audacious goal in the most emotive victory in the history of the Scottish national team, a 3-2 triumph inflicted upon England, their first defeat since becoming world champions the previous summer.
The European Cup winners medal that eluded Law in 1968 looked within reach as United eased into the semi-final stage of the 1968-69 competition. After a 2-0 first-leg reversal in the San Siro against AC Milan, United threw the Old Trafford kitchen sink at their Italian visitors in the return. Bobby Charlton reduced the deficit, but a number of controversial refereeing decisions went against them, Charlton, Busby and Best still irked at mention of the game many years later.
Elimination not only ended their hopes of retaining the European Cup, but also brought a sense of an era coming to an end. Busby retired at the end of the season (returning for a brief spell as caretaker in 1971), with the team as a whole beginning to lose its lustre – growing ever more reliant on Best for inspiration.
After the relatively short reigns of Wilf McGuinness and Frank O’Farrell, Scotland team manager Tommy Docherty was appointed to the role, his ‘out with the old, in with the new‘ approach understandable, although the documentary casts him in unfavourable light with regard to Law’s Old Trafford exit.
‘Tommy Docherty agreed to give me a free transfer,’ explains Law, ‘I had a testimonial arranged, the agreement being I would announce my retirement after that game. I went up to Aberdeen to see family and while I was there it came on television, out of the blue, that I was leaving. People were asking why I hadn’t said anything and it was because we’d agreed to keep it quiet for the time being – I hadn’t even told my wife. So it was a traumatic experience to say the least.’
His eleven-year Manchester United tenure formally ending in the summer of 1973, Law, as a free agent accepted an offer from down the road – Maine Road in fact, rejoining Manchester City on a two-year contract.
As things transpired, he completed one season which was not without its moments. City reached the 1973-74 League Cup Final where they lost 2-1 to Wolves, while on the international stage Law was a member of the Scotland side who qualified for the 1974 World Cup in West Germany – winning his 55th and final cap in the tournament group game against Zaire (despite not losing a game the Scots failed to qualify for the second phase).
It was, however, his final contribution to league football which had the most lasting consequences in 1974. In the Old Trafford Manchester derby on April 27, even with the game deadlocked at 0-0, United, after a dreadful season, teetered on the brink of relegation – only victory in their penultimate fixture enough to preserve their topflight status.
Just nine minutes remained when the ball fell to Law – and with a back-heel from six yards out he sentenced United to their fate. There was no trademark arm-aloft goal salute, not even a smile.
Despite congratulations from those around him in sky blue shirts, Law walked back to the centre circle grim faced, whereupon he is substituted – arms remaining at his side, where they had been since the moment he scored.
Although results elsewhere also conspired against United, there was no escaping the irony of Law scoring on a ground where his goals had once been joyously acclaimed – only for the final one to be greeted with dissent (on being replaced he was booed off the field) and to have such consequences for the club with whom Law was so identified.
‘I had my back to the goal and the back-heel was just an instinctive thing,’ he remembers, ‘for a long time afterwards I wished the referee could have found some reason for it to be disallowed. It was my very last kick of a ball in league football and not a day of joy for me.’
On returning from the World Cup, Law was told by Manchester City boss Tony Book that he faced a season of reserve team football and, viewing it as ‘a dent to my pride‘, decided to retire – and harboring no desire of going into management, his career came to a sudden and somewhat low-key end.
But there was never any likelihood the panache and poise of Denis Law would be forgotten, his ingenuity not diminished with the passing years.
‘You hear all these silly comparisons about how great players of the past wouldn’t live the pace of the game now,’ asserts Ferguson, ‘but great players like Best, Greaves, Bobby and Denis would be fantastic in any era because of their natural talent. No matter what period he played in Denis Law would have been world class. I’d love to have him linking up with van Nistelrooy – imagine that.’
The documentary ends with clips of more recent Manchester United greats, players who have illuminated many occasion at the Theatre of Dreams. Since then, Ronaldo and Rooney have also made their mark, each perhaps a prince of Old Trafford.
The King, however, will always be Denis Law.
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