Denis Law

Denis Law CBE (born 24 February 1940) is a Scottish former football player, who enjoyed a long and successful career as a striker from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Law's career as a football player began at Second Division Huddersfield Town in 1956. After four years at Huddersfield, Manchester City signed him for a transfer fee of £55,000, setting a new British record. Law spent one year there before Torino bought him for £110,000, this time setting a new record fee for a transfer between an English and an Italian club. Although he played well in Italy, he found it difficult to settle there and signed for Manchester United in 1962, setting another British record transfer fee of £115,000.
He is best known for the eleven years that he spent at United, where he scored 237 goals in 404 appearances (second only to Bobby Charlton in the club's goalscoring charts) and was nicknamed The King and The Lawman by supporters. Herein he won ballon d'or in 1964. He is the only Scottish player in history to have won the prestigious European Footballer of the Year award, doing so in 1964, and helped his club win the First Division in 1965 and 1967. He missed their European Cup triumph in 1968 through injury.
Law left Manchester United in 1973 and returned to Manchester City for a season, then represented Scotland in the 1974 FIFA World Cup. Law played for Scotland a total of 55 times and jointly holds the Scottish international record goal tally with 30 goals. Law holds a United record for scoring 46 competitive goals in a single season.

Club Carrer in Manchester United 

Law moved back to Manchester, boarding with the same landlady that he had lived with during his time as a City player. His first match for United was against West Bromwich Albion on 18 August 1962, and he made an excellent start, scoring after only seven minutes. The match finished in a 2–2 draw. However, United's form had been erratic since the Munich air disaster in 1958, and because of their inconsistency they spent the season fighting relegation. In a league match against Leicester City Law scored a hat trick but United still lost. They found form in the FA Cup though, with Law scoring another hat trick in a 5–0 win against his old club Huddersfield, and they went on to reach the final against Leicester City. Leicester were strong favourites, having finished fourth in the league, but Law scored the first goal as United won 3–1 in what turned out to be the only FA Cup final of his career. He also married his wife Diana that season, on 11 December 1962.

Unfortunately, an incident had taken place that season which Law felt had repercussions in years to come. In a match against West Brom on 15 December 1962, the referee Gilbert Pullin consistently goaded Law with taunts such as "Oh, you clever so and so, you can't play", and after the match, Law and his manager Matt Busby reported the matter to the Football Association.A disciplinary committee decided that Pullin should be severely censured, but he did not accept their verdict and quit the game. Law later claimed that "in the eyes of some referees, [Law] was a marked man" and blamed the incident for the "staggeringly heavy punishments" that he received later in his career.

Law scored a number of goals early in the 1963–64 season and was selected to play for a Rest of the World side against England at Wembley, scoring their goal in a 2–1 defeat. He later described this as the greatest honour of his career. His season was interrupted by a 28-day suspension for a sending off that he received against Aston Villa. The unusually cold winter forced United to play many of their fixtures in a short space of time, and their results suffered. Law later blamed this for United's failure to win a trophy in that season.

In 1964–65, Law won the European Footballer of the Year award, and Manchester United won their first league title since Munich. Law's 28 league goals that season made him the First Division's top scorer.

The following season, Law injured his right knee while playing for Scotland against Poland on 21 October 1965. He had previously had an operation on the same knee while at Huddersfield, and the injury was to trouble him for the rest of his career.

In 1966, Law asked United's manager Matt Busby to give him a pay rise at his next contract renewal, and threatened to leave the club if he did not get one. Busby immediately placed Law on the transfer list, announcing that "no player will hold this club to ransom, no player". When Law went to see him, Busby pulled out a written apology for him to sign, showing it to the press once he had done so. Law later claimed that Busby had used the incident to warn other players not to do the same thing, but had secretly given him the pay rise.

In 1968, United won the European Cup for the first time, but Law's knee injury was causing him serious problems and he missed both the semi-final and the final as a result. He was regularly given cortisone injections to ease the pain, but playing while the knee was still injured was causing long-term damage. He visited a specialist in January 1968 who wrote to United claiming that a previous operation to remove the cartilage from the knee had failed and recommending that a second operation be performed, but Law was not shown the report for several years and had to continue full training.

In 1968–69, United reached the semi-final of the European Cup, playing AC Milan. United lost the first leg in the San Siro 2–0, winning the second leg at Old Trafford 1–0 with a Bobby Charlton goal. Law put the ball over the line only to see it kicked away by a Milan defender. Law claimed a goal but the referee waved play on and United went out on aggregate. Busby, who had now been knighted, resigned at the end of the season and United's decline began.

Law was given a free transfer by Tommy Docherty in the summer of 1973, after 11 years at the club during which he had scored a total of 237 goals in 404 games in all competitions, as well as collecting two league title medals and an FA Cup winner's medal. Only Bobby Charlton (who retired in 1973) had scored more goals for United.

Law was then offered a contract by Manchester City manager Johnny Hart, scoring two goals on his debut against Birmingham City in the opening game of the season 1973–74. He made 27 full appearances and two as substitute in that season, including City's 2–1 defeat in the League Cup final against Wolves. In City's last game of the 1973–74 season against Manchester United at Old Trafford, Law's 81st-minute back-heeled goal gave City a 1–0 win but, thinking his goal had relegated United, he did not celebrate it. It turned out they would have been relegated whatever the result, but Law did not know this at the time and walked off the pitch with his head down as he was substituted immediately afterwards. A pitch invasion by Manchester United fans followed, forcing the referee to abandon the game in the 85th minute. After a review, the Football League decided that the result should stand.

In the summer of 1974, he made one appearance for Scotland in the 1974 World Cup, against Zaire.

Law still had a contract with Manchester City, but new manager Tony Book told him that he would only be playing reserve team football if he stayed at the club in the new season. He did not want to end his career in this way, so he retired from professional football in the summer of 1974. Law played two games for Manchester City in the season 1974–75, in the pre-season Texaco Cup tournament, scoring the last goal of his career in the game against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. His last professional game was the 2–1 victory against Oldham Athletic at Maine Road on 6 August 1974.

Personal Life

Since then, Law has often worked on radio and television summarising and presenting games.

He appeared as a special guest on the TV guest show This Is Your Life on 19 February 1975, months after retiring as a player.

As of July 2005, he is still married to Diana, and they still live in the Manchester area. They have five children, and their daughter, also called Diana.

Law was made an Inaugural Inductee of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002 in recognition of his impact on the English game.

On 23 February 2002, a statue of Law was unveiled at Old Trafford, in the part of the stadium known as the Stretford End. He had a successful operation to treat prostate cancer in November 2003 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Aberdeen on 5 July 2005.

The emergence of Dutch international Dennis Bergkamp in the 1990s uncovered a story that the player's parents, who were fans of Manchester United in the 1960s[citation needed], named their son after Law. However, Dutch authorities refused to recognise the name unless it was spelt with two n's as they felt it was otherwise too similar to the female name Denise[citation needed].

On 25 November 2005, Law was at the bedside of former United team-mate George Best as he died of multiple organ failure.

In May 2008 at the Manchester City ground, Law (with UEFA President Michel Platini) presented the medals to the winners of the UEFA Cup, Zenit St. Petersburg, and their opponents, Scottish side Rangers.

In February 2010, Law was named as Patron of the UK based charity Football Aid, taking over from the late Sir Bobby Robson.