Cast in bronze, the three of them stand in front of Old Trafford, the stadium of Manchester United. Scottish striker Denis Law in the middle, his right arm raised after another goal, with Northern Irishman George Best (died 2005) and Englishman Bobby Charlton (died 2023) next to him. They formed the UnitedTrinitythe famous trinity of United, which was the first English club to win the European Cup 1 in 1968.
After Law’s death on Friday at the age of 84, fans laid flowers, shirts and scarves from the club at that bronze statue in recent days. Law was the only Scottish winner of the Golden Ball, as the best footballer in Europe in 1964. Scottish fans also honored him at the statue that has stood in the center of his birthplace Aberdeen for several years. That image also shows Law just after he has scored a goal, right arm and index finger straight up. The striker scored from all positions, from every angle.
For several years, Law had Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia. Together with his family, the Scot, who changed clubs three times for a record transfer amount in the 1960s, raised money for Alzheimer’s research in his final years.
Law played for Manchester United for eleven years and scored 237 goals in 404 games. In the ranking of club top scorers, he occupies third place, behind Wayne Rooney and Bobby Charlton. Law played 55 games as a Scottish international, scoring thirty goals. This made him number 1 in Scottish football history, an honorary title he later had to share with Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish. Alex Ferguson, the Scottish success coach of Manchester Unitedcalled Law the best Scottish footballer of all time in an interview on the club’s website.
Record amount
Law made his debut in professional football as a teenager; not in Scotland, but in Huddersfield, a city between Manchester and Leeds. After four years, in 1960, he went from one club to another for the first time for a record amount. Huddersfield Town FC, where he played under coach Bill Shankly – the Scot who would make Liverpool a top club in the 60s and 70s – sold him to Manchester City for £55,000. A considerable amount at the time, from which the selling club could purchase a light installation, later renamed the Denis Law Lights.
After just one season, Law moved to Italian side Torino for double the amount – another record for a British footballer. He did well there, but Law could not get used to Italy. And so he returned to Manchester after just a year, but this time to coach Matt Busby’s Manchester United. For his third and final record amount: £115,000.
Law starred at United from 1962 to 1973, when he last changed clubs and played one more season for his former club Manchester City. But at United he was “the ultimate goalscorer”, whose “flair, enthusiasm (spirit) and love for the game made him the hero of a generation,” the club wrote on its website on Saturday after the death of “the king of Stretford End”, in a reference to the stand behind one of the goals with the club’s most fanatical supporters. Later, the Frenchman Eric Cantona would also receive that honorary title. In one of the corridors behind that stand, called the West Stand after a restoration, a statue of Law has stood since 2002 – he is the only club hero to be honored with two statues at Old Trafford.
World team
Law, who was also known as ‘The Lawman’ and ‘Denis the Menace’, won the European Cup 1 with United in 1968, as well as a total of two league titles and an FA Cup. As a player for United, he was voted the best footballer in Europe in 1964. With his predecessor and the only goalkeeper to win the Golden Ball, the Russian Lev Yashin, he was in the starting line-up of the world team at Wembley in 1963 that played against England on the occasion of the centenary of the Football Association (FA). A handful of illustrious teammates in that match: the West Germans Karl-Heinz Schnellinger and Uwe Seeler, the Frenchman Raymond Kopa, the Argentinian Alfredi di Stefano, the Portuguese Eusebio, the Spaniard Francisco Gento and the Hungarian Ferenc Puskas. England won 2-1, Law scored the only goal.
At the end of his final season, in April 1974, Law scored for Manchester City in the derby the only goal against his old club United, at Old Trafford of all places. ManUnited were relegated. That one time he didn’t cheer after his goal. That year Law made his World Cup debut, but after the first round the 1974 World Cup was over for Scotland. He played his last international match in Dortmund, against Zaire.
Dennis Bergkamp
In 1969, a big fan of Law in the Netherlands named his recently born son Dennis. It was a year after Manchester United had won the European Cup 1 against Benfica at Wembley. Law was absent from that final due to an injury, which he was forced to watch from a hospital bed in Manchester – in his own words the biggest disappointment of his career. But the childhood photo of Dennis Bergkamp does not lie: as a smiling toddler standing in the cradle, with a photo of the man whose (slightly modified) first name the Dutch football legend bears on the wall above him: Denis Law.