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Denis Law from My Football Facts & Stats Legendary Players

Denis Law (born 24 February 1940) enjoyed a long and successful career as a Scottish 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 f

or 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 409 appearances and was nicknamed The King and The Lawman by supporters. He is the only Scottish player in history to have won the prestigious European Footballer of the Year awar

d, doing so in 1964, and helped his club win the First Division in 1965 and 1967. 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 is also United’s second highest goalscorer behind Bobby Charlton. Law holds a United record for scoring 46 goals in a single season.

In the 1954–55 sea

son, he was spotted by Archie Beattie, a scout for Huddersfield Town, who invited him to go for a trial. When he got there, the manager said, “The boy’s a freak. Never did I see a less likely football prospect — weak, puny and bespectacled.” However, to Law’s surprise, they signed him on 3 April 1955. While he was at Huddersfield, he had an operation to correct his squint, which greatly enhanced his self confidence. Huddersfield’s relegation to what was then the Second Division made it easier for Law to get a game, and he made his debut on 24 December 1956, aged only sixteen, in a 2–0 win over Notts County. Manchester United’s manager Matt Busby shortly offered Huddersfield £10,000 for Law, a substantial amount of money for a footballer at that time, but the club turned the offer down. He was not picked to play for Scotland in the 1958 FIFA World Cup, but scored on his debut against Wales on 18 October 1958 and quickly established himself as a first choice player. Bill Shankly was manager of Huddersfield between 1957 and 1959, and when he left for Liverpool he wanted to take Law with him, but Liverpool were unable to afford him at that time.

In March 1960, Law signed for Manchester City for what was then a British record transfer fee of £55,000, although Law’s share of the fee was “precisely nothing”. Although a First Division side, City had narrowly avoided relegation the previous season, and he genuinely felt that Huddersfield had a better team at the time. Law made his debut on 19 March, scoring in a 4–3 defeat to Leeds United. In April 1961, he scored two goals in a 4–1 win over Aston Villa that ensured City’s survival in Division One Although he had thought about leaving, he was playing well and in 1961 Law scored an incredible six goals in an FA Cup tie against Luton Town. Unfortunately for him, the match was abandoned with twenty minutes to go, so his six goals didn’t count. To make matters worse for him, Luton won the replay 3–1, and City were knocked out of the Cup.

He played but did not score in Scotland’s match against England on 15 April 1961. Scotland lost the match 9–3, and Law described it as his “blackest day”. The following November, Law represented the Football League in a match against the Italian League, losing 4–2. Although he enjoyed his time at City, he wanted to play in a more successful side and was sold to the Italian club Torino in the summer of 1961. Law’s time in Italy did not go according to plan. Another Italian club, Internazionale, tried to prevent him becoming a Torino player as soon as he arrived, claiming he had signed a pre-contract agreement with them, although they dropped this claim before the season started.

Players in the UK were not treated well at the time, and the maximum wage for footballers had only recently been abolished there, so he was pleasantly surprised to find that pre-season training was based in a luxury hotel in the Alps. However, Torino took perform