Denis Law spent 11 years at Manchester United, where he scored 237 goals in 404 appearances.
54 Facts About Denis Law
2.
Denis Law was nicknamed The King and The Lawman by supporters, and Denis the Menace by opposing supporters.
3.
Denis Law is the only Scottish player to have won the Ballon d'Or award, doing so in 1964, and helped his club win the First Division in 1965 and 1967.
4.
Denis Law missed their European Cup triumph in 1968 through injury.
5.
Denis Law left Manchester United in 1973 to return to Manchester City for a season, and represented Scotland at the 1974 FIFA World Cup.
6.
Denis Law played for Scotland a total of 55 times and jointly holds the Scottish international record goal tally with 30 goals.
7.
Denis Law holds a United record for scoring 46 competitive goals in a single season.
8.
Denis Law was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, to George Denis Law, a fisherman, and his wife, Robina; he was the youngest of seven children, four boys and three girls.
9.
The Denis Law family were not well off and lived in a council tenement flat at Printfield Terrace in Woodside, Aberdeen.
10.
Denis Law went barefoot until he was 12 years old and wore handed-down shoes throughout his adolescence; his first pair of football boots came as a second-hand birthday present from a neighbour, which he received as a teenager.
11.
Denis Law supported Aberdeen and watched them when he had enough money to do so, watching local non-league teams when he did not.
12.
City had narrowly avoided relegation from Division I the previous season, and Denis Law genuinely felt that Huddersfield had a better team at the time.
13.
Baker was almost killed, but Denis Law's injuries were not life-threatening.
14.
The final straw for Denis Law came in a match against Napoli when he was sent off.
15.
Denis Law walked out, and was told that he would be transferred to Manchester United.
16.
Denis Law responded by flying home to Aberdeen, knowing that Torino would not get a penny in transfer fees if he refused to play at Juventus.
17.
Ultimately though, Denis Law found the football to be joyless and overly defensive, with him being subjected to violent man marking and heavy tackling on a frequent basis.
18.
Denis Law moved back to Manchester, boarding with the same landlady with whom he had lived during his time as a City player.
19.
Denis Law married his wife Diana that season, on 11 December 1962.
20.
An incident took place that season that Denis Law felt had repercussions in later years.
21.
Denis Law later claimed that "in the eyes of some referees, I was a marked man" and blamed the incident for the "staggeringly heavy punishments" that he received later in his career.
22.
Denis Law later described this as the greatest honour of his career.
23.
Denis Law's season was interrupted by a 28-day suspension for a sending off that he received against Aston Villa.
24.
Denis Law later blamed this for United's failure to win a trophy in that season.
25.
Denis Law 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.
26.
In 1966, Denis 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.
27.
When Denis 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.
28.
Denis 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.
29.
Denis Law was regularly given cortisone injections to ease the pain, but playing while the knee was still injured was causing long-term damage.
30.
Denis Law 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.
31.
Denis Law recommended that United replace O'Farrell with Tommy Docherty, whom he knew from his time playing with the Scottish national side.
32.
Denis 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.
33.
Denis Law was offered a contract by Manchester City manager Johnny Hart.
34.
Results of the day's other matches meant that United were relegated whatever their result, but Denis Law did not know that at the time.
35.
Denis Law did not want to end his career in this way, so he retired from professional football in the summer of 1974.
36.
Denis Law was not chosen to play for Scotland in the 1958 FIFA World Cup, but was given his debut in a British Home Championship match against Wales on 18 October 1958 by Matt Busby, who managed Scotland on a temporary basis for two matches.
37.
Denis Law played but did not score in Scotland's match against England on 15 April 1961.
38.
Denis Law was chosen for the Rest of the World team that faced England in the FA Centenary match in 1963.
39.
Denis Law injured his right knee while playing for Scotland against Poland on 21 October 1965.
40.
Manchester United won the league that season, but Denis Law felt that the victory over England was even more satisfying.
41.
Denis Law was "very disappointed" not to be picked for the following match against Brazil, and was not selected for the following match against Yugoslavia either.
42.
Denis Law jointly holds the Scottish international record goal tally with 30 goals.
43.
Denis Law first met his wife-to-be, Diana, in an Aberdeenshire dancehall when they were both still teenagers.
44.
Since retiring as a player, Denis Law has often worked on radio and television summarising and presenting games.
45.
Denis Law was one of the first sport news presenters of Granada Reports and was the sub-presenter of Granada Television's Kick Off Match, the equivalent of LWT's The Big Match.
46.
Denis Law appeared as a special guest on the TV guest show This Is Your Life on 19 February 1975, months after retiring as a player.
47.
Denis Law was made an Inaugural Inductee of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002 in recognition of his impact on the English game.
48.
On 23 February 2002, a statue of Denis Law was unveiled at Old Trafford, in the part of the stadium known as the Scoreboard End.
49.
Denis Law had a successful operation to treat prostate cancer in November 2003 and was awarded honorary degrees from the Universities of Aberdeen and St Andrews in 2005, and Robert Gordon University in 2017.
50.
The emergence of Dutch international Dennis Bergkamp in the 1990s uncovered a story that the player's parents were fans of Denis Law and named their son after him.
51.
On 25 November 2005, Denis Law was at the bedside of former United teammate George Best as he died of multiple organ failure.
52.
In February 2010, Denis Law was named as patron of the UK based charity Football Aid, taking over from the late Sir Bobby Robson.
53.
Denis Law was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to football and charity.
54.
In November 2021 a second statue of Denis Law was unveiled in Aberdeen city centre.