From barefoot boy to Ballon d’Or – celebrating the man who bought magic to Manchester

Denis Law is the only Scot who has ever been crowned European Footballer of the Year. He was a great showman and one of the deadliest goal poachers the game has ever produced.

As George Best once explained, “If a pass from Denis Law failed to reach you, it was odds-on that you were not thinking fast enough to be in the right place for it.”

Denis Law’s story

Law was born in Aberdeen, into abject poverty, on the 24th of February 1940, the youngest of seven children. He went barefoot until he was 12, and turned down a place at the grammar school because it would have meant playing rugby (union, obviously).

Law once explained how growing up in Aberdeen he looked like anything but a future professional sportsman. “Small, skinny and bespectacled with a dreadful squint, it is a wonder my fisherman father did not throw me straight into the North Sea.”

In the early days, before he had an operation for a squint, he would play with one eye closed.

Andy Beattie

When Andy Beattie, who became Scotland’s first-ever manager in 1954, first saw Law, he said to his brother: “The boy’s a freak. Never did I see a less likely football prospect – weak, puny and bespectacled.

Denis Law’s career in England began at Huddersfield when he was 15. Four years later, he was transferred to Manchester City for what was then a British record transfer fee of £55,000, although for Law there was no share.

The highlight of his 15 months at City was the six goals he scored in an FA Cup tie against Luton, only for the tie to be abandoned. Luton won the re-arranged match.

In the summer of 1961, while George Best was reluctantly settling in, in south Manchester, Denis Law was leaving Manchester City for Torino, for a record £110,000 fee. Law went to Italy with Hibs’ Joe Baker. When their plane touched down, they were welcomed by thousands of cheering fans. Pre-season training included a stay at a luxury hotel in the Alps.

Just before the season started, Inter Milan unsuccessfully claimed that Law had signed a pre-contract agreement to join them. Unconcerned, Law bagged four goals in his first six games. The downside was the cynical tactics of the Italian defenders, who targeted his legs with and without the ball.

A close shave

On the 7th of February 1962, tragedy almost struck. At four in the morning, Joe Baker drove Law and his party home in his brand-new Alfa Romeo Giulietta. Driving too fast along the Corso Cairoli, he misjudged a turn at a roundabout and clipped the kerb. The car flipped over and hit a statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the founder of modern Italy, stopping just short of the River Po.

Amazingly, Law suffered only minor injuries, but Baker went into a coma. On waking, Baker assumed he had killed Law. In his last game for Torino, against Napoli on the 25th of April, Law discovered that the Torino manager had asked the referee to send him off because he had ignored instructions about taking a throw-in. Despite a successful season goal-wise, Law wanted to go home, and now joined Manchester United in the summer of 1962 for another record fee.

Manchester United’s golden era

This marked the beginning of United’s next golden era, with the trinity of Best, Law and Charlton about to burst into life. In October 1963, Law scored the only for The Rest of the World (in effect just the Rest of Europe), in losing 2-1 to England in the FA’s centenary match. Within a year, Denis Law was named European Footballer of the year.

Trophies followed for the King of the Scots, including an FA Cup and two League, as well as 171 League goals (now United’s third highest ever). But with the injuries mounting, the goals dried up, and Law at 33 was given a free transfer by Tommy Docherty in the summer of 1973, joining, remarkably, Manchester City again.

Law left at just the right time, for United, even more remarkably, were relegated at the end of the season. The dreaded drop was determined in the last game of the season when Law’s audacious back-heeled goal gave City a 1-0 lead against…yes, it had to be, Manchester United, and at Old Trafford.

Thinking the goal had relegated his former club, he didn’t celebrate and walked off with his head down as a pitch invasion followed. In the end, other results saw United go down anyway. That was it. That was to be Denis Law’s last ever goal. He played only one more first class game, for Scotland against Zaire at the 1974 World Cup.

While England were winning the World Cup on the 30th of July 1966, Law was not even watching it on TV. He was playing golf, and when he was told the news of their win, he threw his golf bag and clubs into the water and stormed off the course.

He always claimed he never found out what the score was.

Historian Ed Glinert is writing a history of Manchester called “Manchester: The Biography”. You can find out more on his website here.