THESE are busy times for Denis Law, Scotland's greatest living footballer.
Last night he was back home speaking at Aberdeen FC's annual dinner. As a boy he was a devoted Dons' fan and thanks to satellite television, he is still able to keep abreast of events at Pittodrie, even if he doesn't get up to see his family in Aberd
een as often as he would like.
This afternoon he will give Scotland's World Cup qualifier with Norway at Hampden a body swerve – he has to be back in Manchester to undertake a charity walk in aid of a Meningitis charity, but he will be there in spirit.
"I am sorry I will miss the Norway game, which is definitely a 'must-win' match, but the charity walk is a long-standing engagement," says Law.
"Not losing your home games is so important in international tournament play and we have to keep chalking up the wins to stay in touch with the Dutch, who are, to me, the class team in our group.
"I would love to be at Hampden of course, but it simply isn't possible and I will be going straight back to Manchester from Aberdeen."
Next Saturday, 18 October, marks the 50th anniversary of the commencement of his stellar international career, which kicked off with Law playing a major role in a 3-0 Ninian Park victory over Wales.
"It seems like only the day before yesterday," he says.
Much was expected of the 18-year-old Huddersfield inside left, then the youngest Scot to be named in the full side in the 20th century, and he did not disappoint; marking his first game in navy blue with the second of Scotland's three goals. It wasn't one of the more memorable of the 30 goals he was to go on and score in his 55 appearances for the national side: an attempted clearance by Wales captain Dave Bowen actually struck Law and bounced into the net.
"I saw Dave shaping to clear, reckoned the ball might hit me, so I turned my back on him in self-defence and it hit me and bounced into the net – a fluke really, but they all count," laughs Law. "I was absolutely delighted to get the call, which I feel has to go down to Sir Matt Busby being Scotland boss at the time and putting my name forward to the selection committee who picked the national sides then. I still say playing for your country is the biggest honour in football and to be called-up alongside great players like Dave Mackay, Tommy Docherty, Graham Leggat and Bobby Collins was a huge thrill for me," Law continues.
"The Home Internationals were always big games for Northern Ireland and Wales and don't forget, they had both done better than England and Scotland in the 1958 World Cup finals. The English and Scots went home after the group stages, but it took a Pele goal to knock out a very good Welsh side in the quarter-finals, while Northern Ireland also reached the last eight, so we were by no means favourites to win in Cardiff."
Law's debut might have come even earlier; in February, 1958, aged just 17, he was named as a non-travelling reserve for the Scotland v Scottish League match at Easter Road, one of the three trial games the SFA arranged in the build-up to the ultimately disappointing World Cup campaign in Sweden.
"It's news to me now that I was even being considered for the World Cup squad, I had only played a handful of first-team games for Huddersfield at that time, and when I did get the Scotland call eight months later, I had only played around 40 first-team games."
There were two other notable points about the Cardiff game. It was the first in which the legendary Manchester United manager Sir Matt Busby was in charge of Scotland, while as if to say: "We're making a new start", after Scotland's disappointing display in the World Cup Finals in Sweden, the captaincy was handed to Hearts' Dave Mackay, who was making only his third international appearance.
Mackay led a team which lined up: Bill Brown (Dundee); John Grant (Hibernian), Eric Caldow (Rangers), Mackay, Willie Toner (Kilmarnock), Tommy Docherty (Arsenal), Graham Leggat (Fulham), Bobby Collins (Everton), David Herd (Arsenal), Law, Jackie Henderson (Arsenal). Grant, Toner and Herd, like Law, were making their international debuts that day. Law went on to win 55 caps in a Scotland career which extended to the 1974 World Cup; Grant and Toner were former internationals within a month, while Herd's Scotland career was extended by only four more caps, two in that season and a further pair in 1961.
If Law's debut was eagerly anticipated, so too was Busby's bow as national team manager. This had been delayed since he was appointed in January, by his lengthy convalescence following his near-death experience in the Munich air disaster in February 1958. The Scot hovered between life and death for weeks after the crash, but unlike so many of his great United team of "Busby Babes", he recovered, albeit slowly.
Sadly for Scotland, the still-frail Busby was only in charge for this game and the Hampden match with Ireland two-and-a-half weeks later, before his fragile health and the need to rebuild his shattered United side post-Munich forced him to resign the position.
The Tartan Army will be wishing Scotland had Law in his prime around this afternoon, he certainly plundered a few goals off the Norwegians during his international career. The Lawman thrice scored hat-tricks or better for Scotland, two of them coming against Norway – in a frantic five-month period during 1963.
He cracked home three goals in a 4-3 summer tour defeat in Bergen on 4 June. He then scored four, with Mackay getting the other two, as Scotland exacted a 6-1 revenge for that surprise defeat back at Hampden Park on 7 November.
It should be added that, after the Bergen blip, one prominent Scottish football writer of the time called for Law's axing from the side – scoring three equalisers seemingly was not good enough for this critic.
"Losing in Bergen was the sort of freak result we occasionally produced back then, and the Scottish football writers of the time tended to blame the Anglo-Scots when we lost," Law recalls.
"We had some tremendous players in those days, but Scotland under-achieved massively. I don't know what caused it; certainly international sides are much better-organised today, but with the talent at our disposal, Dave Mackay, Jim Baxter, Jimmy Johnstone, Billy Bremner and so on, our repeated failure in the major competitions is inexplicable," the player known as the King added.
"Losing in Bergen was certainly a major shock. We had won our last four internationals, including winning at Wembley, and the Norwegian team of the 1960s was a lot weaker than the side Scotland will face on Saturday afternoon. They've come up a long way in the international reckoning since back then, when we thought all they could do was skate and ski.
"However, I feel with home advantage at Hampden, we should be too strong for them, although they have players such as John Carew, who are capable of hurting us. I expect Holland to top the group, they are a class side, but I believe we have the players to remain on their heels and, if they slip up, I hope we can take advantage and maybe qualify for South Africa.
"Norway will be big, hard, well-organised and will play as a team. Also, after slipping up slightly against Iceland, they'll not want to drop any more points. Make no mistake, we're in a hard group and we cannot afford to lose any more games before we play the Dutch, if we are to go through."
It was all so much easier 50 years ago, when Denis Law represented a bright future for Scotland in international football.
The full article contains 1354 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
