Denis Law

by Alex Gordon

  Summerbee looked back at the League Cup Final defeat against Wolves and said, ‘It was my last game at Wembley and I don’t recall it with any fondness. What I do remember above all, though, is sitting on the coach next to Denis as we left the stadium and seeing how much losing had hurt him. Denis was one of the great players of my era, of any era in football, as a matter of fact. I remember saying to him on the coach that at least I could tell my grandchildren I had played alongside Denis Law in a Cup Final. It was a corny line and it didn’t cheer him up, but I meant it all the same.’

  After Wembley, City lost to Leeds United in a league game and Law was dropped. A few of his big-name colleagues suffered the same fate. Law was playing for the reserves, a situation, if it continued, that would most assuredly have made certain he would not be representing Scotland in any fixture, never mind the World Cup. Worse still, Law was to discover that, behind his back, Saunders had agreed to sell him to Fourth Division Bradford City. Law admitted, ‘I would have retired there and then, but the finals in West Germany were only a few weeks away and I was determined to win back my place in the City first team and at least give myself the chance of going to my first World Cup. I was insulted when Saunders tried to sell me to Bradford. There I was, preparing for a World Cup, and he was getting ready to sell me to a club in the lowest division in the country. I lost all respect for him.’

  Law informed Saunders he wasn’t going anywhere and set his sights on becoming as fit as possible. An SFA official was on hand to watch his return to the top side at the start of April against Queens Park Rangers. As usual, Law gave it his best shot, but the team collapsed to a miserable 3-0 thrashing. The following day Saunders was sacked after only five months in charge with former City captain Tony Book taking over, the third manager at Maine Road in one season. Law, happily, must have done enough in the landslide defeat against the London side to merit a positive mention in the ear of Willie Ormond. In the last league game of the season, his neat back-heel would confirm Manchester United’s descent into the Second Division. It beggars belief that goal was to be Law’s last kick of the ball at club level. There were only eight minutes remaining when Law, displaying those lightning reflexes of yesteryear, reacted quicker than the United defence to flick a right-wing cross beyond a helpless Alex Stepney. United fans swarmed onto the pitch and, amid the bedlam, Book signalled for Law, who refused to celebrate the strike, to come off. Before he could do that, though, referee David Smith called a halt to proceedings and the English League held an emergency meeting and decided to let the scoreline remain and award the points to City.

  Before that, though, was the little matter of the death-or-glory encounter with Czechoslovakia and, against a welter of expectations and predictions, Denis Law had been named in Willie Ormond’s squad. Not only that, he was in the starting line-up. The crowd for the game had to be restricted to 100,000 on the instructions of the police authorities. They could have quadrupled that attendance such was the overwhelming demand to witness the spectacle. Ernie Walker recalled, ‘The fans turned out in their thousands to buy tickets. There was a huge snake-like line outside Hampden Park as the supporters queued patiently. I’m sure a few of them had been there for days.’

  Sandy Jardine, the assured Rangers full-back, remembered, ‘The Czechs had been held to a surprise 1-1 draw with Denmark in Copenhagen and that meant we went into the game knowing a victory would see us qualify. Looking at the section, I think a lot of people thought Scotland would be second favourites. The Danes, at the time, weren’t a European force, but Czechoslovakia’s pedigree was obvious to all. They were a very good team with some exceptional players.’

  Peter Lorimer, the Leeds United heavy hitter, had to sit out the action through suspension following his ordering-off against Denmark in the previous game. However, he added, ‘We were a confident bunch of guys going into that game. We had a great squad with some very good players. I wasn’t involved, but such was the depth and quality of the squad that I wasn’t missed. There was no guarantee I would have started the game, anyway, even if I had been available.’

  John Blackley, a sweeper who relied upon anticipation rather than pace, laughed as he recalled Scotland’s preparations for the match. He said, ‘The build-up to the occasion was obviously quite tense. We trained on the Wednesday morning of the game. We had a kick about and a few laps as we went through our normal routines. We finished our training session and there was the shout of “Last man in the van.” That normally triggered a sprint from the players to pile into the vehicle. We all started to run when we heard a cry from Wee Billy Bremner, “Hey, whoa there. What about set-pieces? We haven’t done any work on dead balls. Come on, lads, get back here and let’s go through a few of them.” Willie Ormond agreed. “Right enough, Billy,” he said. “Let’s get back to the training ground, lads.” The players piled back onto the pitch. Tommy Hutchison took a corner from the left, swung in at the near post and Big Jim Holton got his head on it to send the ball hurtling into the net. That was enough for Wee Willie. He shouted, “Right lads, last in the van.” And that was that. One corner-kick! That was our build-up to the night. Incredible.’

  Midfield enforcer Davie Hay has vivid memories of the evening of 26 September. He said, ‘Willie Ormond’s pre-match talk in the Hampden dressing room to the assembled players was succinct and to the point. “Go out there and become legends. Don’t let your country down. Don’t let yourselves down. Go on and get the job done.” Wee Willie didn’t waste any time with mumbo jumbo or the like. We all knew what was expected. I recall the bedlam that was already reverberating around the place. Thump, thump, thump. We could hear the supporters banging their feet above us almost in unison, a rhythmic and hypnotic call to arms. It was tribal-like and I could see it was getting through to my teammates, including my great hero Denis Law, who, at 33 years old, must have seen and heard it all before.

  ‘We all made the usual noises. “Let’s get in about them.” “This is our night.” “We’ll show them.” All that sort of stuff. Denis threw in a couple, as well. It was impossible not to be sucked into this intoxicating mixture of anticipation and expectation. The atmosphere before kick-off was quite awesome and the shrieks and the chants from the frenzied crowd were reaching an ear-splitting crescendo. Players go through all sorts of routines in the dressing room. Some would be fidgeting with their tie-ups. Others would be footering with their laces. Some checked their studs for the umpteenth time. Through it all, though, was a remarkable degree of concentration from each and every one of us. This was our destiny. Then the referee, a Norwegian bloke called Henry Oberg, popped his head round the door and told us it was time to go. Chests out, teeth gritted, jaws jutting, muscles flexed. We walked out of the dressing room and into the tunnel. “Scot-land . . . Scot-land” was the cry that filled the stadium.

  ‘I defy anyone to say that sort of enthralling atmosphere doesn’t get the adrenalin going. It was awesome. The best I had ever sampled was the night back in 1970 when Celtic beat Leeds United in the European Cup semi-final second leg at the national stadium. There were 136,505 at Hampden on that occasion. But the clamour created by the Tartan Army three years later was simply deafening. It was amazingly uplifting; pure, gorgeous, orchestrated mayhem. We were a mere 90 minutes away from reaching the World Cup Finals. Astonishingly, the last time we achieved it in Sweden in 1958 I was still at St James’s Primary School in Paisley.’

  Denis Law might have seen the date of the game as a good omen. ‘Remarkably, it was 12 years to the day that I had scored twice against Czechoslovakia in the World Cup-tie at Hampden that forced the play-off in Brussels. Unfortunately, we lost that match and I was beginning to wonder if I was fated not to appear in the finals of this competition.’

  After much deliberating and soul-searching, Ormond went with this line-up: Hunter (Celtic); Jardine (Rangers), Holton (Manchester United), Connelly (Celtic), McGrain (Celtic); Morgan (Manchester United), Bremner (Leeds United, captain), Hay (Celtic), Hutchison (Coventr
y City); Dalglish (Celtic) and Law (Manchester City).

  Obviously, the first goal was going to be crucial and, sadly for Ally Hunter, the Scottish goalkeeper, it arrived in the 34th minute and it was a personal calamity. Zdenek Nehoda cut inside from the right and lashed what looked like a happy-go-lucky effort at goal. It wasn’t particularly fiercely struck and appeared to even lack the oomph to reach its target. Hunter moved to his right to deal with the threat. Alarmingly, the keeper seemed to lose the flight of the ball and it managed to elude his hands and ended up in the far corner.

  Hunter said, ‘Everything was going perfectly well up until then and they had hardly threatened. It looked only a matter of time before we scored. The goal was a disaster for me. I don’t know if the occasion got to me or maybe I didn’t concentrate properly when Nehoda let fly. Nevertheless, that was us one down and the place just went silent. I felt sick; really sick.’

  Hunter’s battle to beat his jitters would have been helped along the way just before the interval. Law forced a corner-kick on the left and Tommy Hutchison raced over to take it before the referee had the chance to blow for half-time. The Scots piled forward and Jim Holton joined them. The Coventry City winger threw in a cross to the near post and Holton, utterly fearless, leapt determinedly to get his head to the ball. Goalkeeper Ivo Viktor was caught in no-man’s-land and the Manchester United defender’s effort zoomed over a helpless defender on the goal-line. It would be only right and proper to state Scotland had worked on that particular manoeuvre on the training ground. Well, at least once!

  It was still stalemated at 1-1 after the hour mark when Ormond made a brave and momentous decision. He sent out Joe Jordan to warm up. The fans must have wondered who was going to make way. It was a straight choice between Denis Law and Kenny Dalglish. The Scottish manager showed enormous faith in Law, a decade older than the Celtic player, kept him on and replaced the younger man. Ormond explained his thinking afterwards, ‘I saw Denis was giving them problems when high balls dropped into their box. They knew all about his ability with his head and they were blocking him as he tried to make his runs. Willie Morgan and Tommy Hutchison were delivering good balls into the danger areas, but the Czechs were double-banking on Denis. I was very impressed that he never looked like chucking it. He just kept coming back for more. He was everywhere that night, but he needed support in the air. That’s why I sent on Joe Jordan. That doubled our threat in that area.’

  The gamble, if, in fact, it was that, paid off handsomely. Jordan’s first act was to bullet a header from a Morgan cross just over Viktor’s crossbar. He had put down a very positive marker. The Leeds United man had been on the pitch barely 20 minutes when he just about brought the house down in the 75th minute. Skipper Billy Bremner informed Davie Hay he would be forsaking the defensive duties of his midfield beat to push forward. ‘It made sense,’ said the Celtic player. ‘Billy was always a threat up front and had scored some invaluable goals for his club. It curtailed my game, but it was for the good of the team and, naturally, I accepted it.’

  It worked in one glorious moment when Bremner, on the right-hand side of the penalty box, twisted and turned to get into a shooting position and fired low past the sprawling Viktor. The crowd rose as one to hail a goal. Their joy was stifled in an instant as the ball clattered against the bottom of the keeper’s right-hand upright, ran along the face of the goal and was hastily booted away by a frantic Czech defender. His clearance went straight to Morgan, who jinked one way, went another and sent in a cross off the outside of his boot. Jordan launched himself forward, made perfect contact with his head and the ball was in the net before Viktor, a brave and gallant goalkeeper, could blink. Law, smack in front of goal, punched the air. Jordan admitted, ‘I was confident we would get a goal when I came on. I would even go as far as to say I believed I would score it.’

  Law, in fact, could also have got on the scoresheet in that frantic second-half. Hay recalled, ‘We broke forward at one stage with the Czechs caught up the field. Denis had the ball at his feet and he was zeroing in on goal. I was running alongside him shouting for a pass. I could have saved my breath; there was no way, absolutely no way, Denis was passing the ball to me. I could have been Pele and he still wouldn’t have parted with the ball. He probably saw me out of the corner of his eye and thought I would have missed, anyway. On he went, but, unfortunately, their keeper Viktor raced from his goal and managed to block the effort. Credit to their goalie, it was a good, well-timed stop. But how marvellous would it have been for Denis to score on that fabulous night?’

  Afterwards, Law was singled out for special praise in the media along with goal hero Jordan and the hard-working Hutchison. One report claimed, ‘Denis Law rolled back the years. This was the Denis The Menace we all know and love. The Czechs must have been delighted to see the back of him after this non-stop, energetic display. He didn’t stop for a breather and showed, once again, that he is one of the best forwards Scotland has ever produced.’

  Billy Bremner said, ‘I immediately thought about the boss, Willie Ormond, when the referee blew for full-time. I believed he deserved to share our glory. My first reaction was to go and get him out of the tunnel. Do you know he didn’t want to come onto the pitch? He said, “It’s the players’ night, go and enjoy yourself.” I told him, “It’s your night, too, now get out there.” I felt he had done as much as anyone to get us to the World Cup Finals.’ Photographs in the newspapers the following day showed Law, who had by that time swapped his Scotland shirt for a Czechoslovakian one, and Bremner hoisting the unassuming Ormond on their shoulders. The Scotland manager looked ecstatic even if a trifle embarrassed.

  So, Scotland were out of the 16-year wilderness that had seen them fail so often when hopes were high. There was a dreadful inconsistency about a team that could achieve some spectacular results against top opposition and fail miserably when confronted by mediocre and average outfits. No matter. West Germany was now on the horizon. There was one fixture left to be fulfilled, the meaningless return against Czechoslovakia in Bratislava on 17 October. Only 15,000 spectators bothered to turn out.

  Skipper Billy Bremner had been involved in some spiteful skirmishes with Czech opponents in Glasgow and there was the underlying threat of some retribution coming his way. Wisely, Willie Ormond left out the Leeds midfielder for this one and gave the captaincy to Davie Hay. He went with this side: Harvey (Leeds United); Jardine (Rangers), Forsyth (Rangers), Blackley (Hibs), McGrain (Celtic); Morgan (Manchester United), Dalglish (Celtic), Davie Hay (Celtic), Tommy Hutchison (Coventry City); Denis Law (Manchester City) and Joe Jordan (Leeds United). Donald Ford replaced Law in the second-half.

  The game was irrelevant as was Nehoda’s penalty-kick that proved to be the only goal of a fairly drab encounter. A report at the time read, ‘To describe the game as tedious is to be generous. Scotland had every incentive to avoid unnecessary bookings and their tactics seemed no more threatening than to retain possession. This they achieved without alarm until the 18th minute, when Nehoda carried the ball past Tom Forsyth, who challenged untidily and handled into the bargain. Having manufactured the penalty, Nehoda was given the privilege of scoring from it. The Scots showed no great enthusiasm to make good the deficit; the Czechs even less to increase it or exact gratuitous revenge on their opponents. After an hour, Ormond took off Law and awarded a first cap to Hearts’ Donald Ford, Scotland’s leading league scorer. Ford came nearest to squaring the issue. In the last minute his shot from a tight angle cannoned to safety off the head of Viktor. At the end, a storm of whistling enveloped the stadium.’

  So, it was a beaten, but ultimately successful, Scotland side that left the pitch in Bratislava. Later they were to discover that Poland, against the odds, had drawn 1-1 with England at Wembley and knocked them out of the tournament. Scotland would be Great Britain’s only representatives in the World Cup Finals in 1974. They were smack in the spotlight; they were the main attraction.

  It was the perfect stage for a guy calle
d Denis Law.

  Chapter Twenty

  FOR THE RECORD

  Sadly, I missed that glorious evening at Hampden on 26 September 1973. I was working on the Daily Record sports desk as a sub-editor and, after getting me tickets for the Scotland v. Czechoslovakia game, chief sports editor Alex Cameron – known to all as Chiefy – informed me that there was no chance of me being anywhere near Mount Florida on that date. My desperate pleas fell on deaf ears. I would be very much on call. He thought the tickets were for someone else and, as it turned out, he was proved correct when I passed them on to a pal on the features desk. I can’t remember if he paid for them or not, but I’m sure he had a great night at our national stadium. At my expense.

  My shift at the country’s biggest-selling newspaper normally started at 3 p.m. I rolled in as plans were unfolding for the match that evening. As usual, the Record would be sending three sports reporters to the game, the aforementioned Chiefy, Hugh Taylor and Ken Gallacher. That was the norm for such an occasion. Chiefy would provide a ‘think’ piece – normally under the banner ‘CAMERON COMMENT’ – Hughie would provide the match report, delivered in his usual colourful and succinct style, while Ken would hoover up the quotes and take care of the back page article. Four photographers were heading for Hampden, Eric Craig, Bob Campbell, Bert Paterson and Robert Hotchkiss.

  It’s fascinating to look at that newspaper today. In fact, it’s fairly bewildering. On the front page there is a six-column photograph of a clearly delighted Old Firm double-act of Sandy Jardine, sporting some interesting headgear, and Danny McGrain. The headline is in 144 point thin face lower case wob (white on black) stating: ‘We did it!’ I know the exact point size because I wrote the headline. There is a cross reference running under the picture: World Cup Heroes – PAGES 34 and 35. Jardine and McGrain had to share their joy with a wing column news story, headlined: ‘Chrysler storm: But talks end in deadlock.’ A strike appeared to be just around the corner.