Denis Law: 'Scotland is about to lay king to rest. Sleep well, my hero'
2025-01-18
Category: sports

My last hero has gone.Let's not debate this. Denis Law was the greatest Scottish player of all time. If you weren't there, you won't know.The only man from this little outcrop of North Atlantic rock to be named European  player of the year.A tally of 30 goals in 55 games. Not much more than half the number it took Kenny Dalglish to reach the same tally.Denis was a schoolboy's poster player, a will-o'-the-wisp striker capable of gravity-defying aerodynamics.He inspired a generation of kids and persuaded us you really needed to grasp the cuff of your strip when you played. And raise one arm to the heavens when you scored.He was a diamond of a man. They say you should never meet your heroes but the 'Lawman' blew that theory out the water.My mates have been distinctly unimpressed by my career fawning around celebrities. But they were hushed and humbled when once, in Vilamoura in Portugal, Denis shouted my name and ran across a street to greet me.Denis inflated my street cred. He was a proper Scottish hero.He blazed trails, moving to Italy in an era when that was about as frequent as a lunar landing. But they didn't understand his ways nor him theirs in Turin.And so the legend of the holy trinity at Old Trafford was born. Law, Charlton and Bestâ¦ the one about the Scotsman, the Englishman and a Northern Irishman. The stuff of statues.
'If you weren't there, be humble'
A hero in an adopted country where he lived and raised a family and yet, famously, he was on a deserted golf course when England were winning the World Cup.He argued with Jim Baxter - another handy craftsman of the trade - when we ripped the English at Wembley in 1967.James wanted to extract the urine with keepy uppy and nutmegs. But, then, the 9-3 humiliation of 1961 hadn't involved our clowning prince as it had the king.Denis wanted to hammer the nails into their coffin.They should lay the great man to rest in a dark blue crew-necked long-sleeve shirt with 10 on the back.I'm envisioning the image of him turning from another goal even now.Ah Denis, you and your impish sense of fun.  At first he hated Jonathan Watson's caricature of him in Only an Excuse, but grew to suffer it so much that at the 1990 World Cup in Italy he agreed to sneak up on the wee man while I persuaded him on TV to impersonate the Lawman.Johnny's face was the colour of Denis' Manchester United top.At this point I kind of feel I should list the Scottish greats of my time on earthâ¦ but I won't. Denis Law was stand-alone stuff. Standing. of course, one hand raised to the skies.Not an ounce to spare, constructed with, it seemed, the hovering engineering of an angel. He was Scotland's best. Ever.If you weren't there, then I put my fingers to my lips and urge you to be humble and appreciate the wisdom of those who were. We are about to lay the king to rest.Sleep well, my hero.