Denis Law: Scotland’s Serie A Pioneer | OneFootball

He was only there for one season, but Denis Law paved the way for the glut of his countrymen now playing in Italy. Giancarlo Rinaldi pays tribute and looks back at his dramatic year with Torino.

You can hardly move nowadays without bumping into a Scotsman in Serie A. Whether you are watching the sun set over the Bay of Naples, trying tortellini in Bologna or buying a fine Barolo in Turin you have half a chance of stumbling across some hero of the Tartan Army. Things were very different back in 1961.

The world has become a smaller place thanks to technology and travel but when Denis Law put pen to paper for Torino – along with England-born Scot Joe Baker – it still seemed a pretty daunting voyage for the then 21-year-old from Aberdeen. A big transfer fee for the time – £110,000 from Manchester City – added to the expectation. It was to be a tempestuous 12 months or so to say the least.

Serie A did not generally come shopping for its Stranieri in the British Isles but the success of Welshman John Charles at Juventus persuaded quite a few clubs to look across the English Channel in the summer of Law’s transfer. As well as the also Torino-bound Baker, Jimmy Greaves went to Milan and Gerry Hitchens to Inter – but only the Nerazzurri’s acquisition would last more than a season. Age, perhaps, and the style of football being played in Italy at the time put the other three off.

On the face of it, Law did pretty well on the field of play. Ten goals in 27 league games was a decent haul – matching the likes of Milan legend Gianni Rivera that term – but he did not enjoy playing in more defensive climes. His Torino side managed not much more than a goal a game whereas his previous season in England had been with a Manchester City team that mustered close to double that. For a man who lived for putting the ball in the net, it was not the kind of football he savoured.

Then there were the issues off the pitch. He and Baker could only phone home about once a week and, perhaps because they had each other, never fully adapted to their new surroundings. “I admit that, looking back, it might have been a mistake for the two of us to be transferred together,” he said in the Tumult in Turin chapter of his book My Life in Football. “Because we had each other, we didn’t become as integrated into Italian life and culture as we might have done had we been solo.”

To compound matters, the pair were involved in a serious car crash in Baker’s Alfa Romeo. Law was virtually unscathed but his teammate broke his nose, cheekbone and jaw and took months to recover. It was perhaps hardly surprising that both of them were starting to look at ways to get back to playing in England.

Still, although he found the football “joyless”, there were aspects of Law’s time in Italy which might echo with his modern counterparts. “I loved the clothes and the food, and in no time at all a typical pint-of-lager lad from Aberdeen was turned on to wine,” he wrote. “As a result, when I returned to England in 1962 and started asking for Pinot Noir or Chianti, everyone looked at me as if I was mad.”

The man they dubbed The King recognised that his time in Serie A improved his game and also appreciated the assistance of future World Cup winning coach Enzo Bearzot – then Granata skipper – in making him feel welcome. Nonetheless, when the chance came to return to the UK – in the shape of Manchester United – it was a no-brainer, despite efforts by Juventus to keep him in Italy. The rest, of course, is history as he would win major honours and secure the Ballon d’Or. However, despite the brevity of his time in Italy, he realised it had helped him.

He reckoned it gave him an “extra dimension” and made him a “more rounded player”. “With Torino I had been constantly marked by two defenders,” he recalled. “Now, in the much more open English game, it felt by comparison that I wasn’t being marked at all.” It would see him run riot for both club and country with a poise, flair and eye for goal that few could match.

His old club, Torino, joined the tributes when his death was announced at the age of 84 to a footballer they fondly remembered – even if he only passed that way for a season. Law was an early ambassador for Scottish football in Italy and any prejudice towards the nation has been well and truly dismantled by now. If the accents of Ardrossan, Hamilton and Livingston are now being heard in dressing rooms up and down Serie A then they owe him a little debt of gratitude. He might only have been a meteor in the world of Calcio – but he surely shone more brightly than most.

@ginkers