Episode Transcript
And guys, another comment on X Kate, memories of Denis Law at Torino. That's the recent passing of Denis Law. Dan's written a piece on that. It's a feature piece. Wonderful piece, Dan. Well done on that one. Guys, that legacy that he's left, obviously Manchester United, but he did have that season in Turin. Dan, take us through. He did. One of the great sides. mean, Denis Law's career is a career of sliding doors moment. He famously came through at Huddersfield under Bill Shankly.
And Bill Shankly wanted to take him to Liverpool and Liverpool could not afford him. you know, he obviously became a Man United legend, but he could have been playing for Liverpool. And then at Torino, he moved over and scored 10 goals in 27 games, which may not seem too impressive, but when you can see the level of Serie A back then, how hard it was for strikers to actually put the ball in the back of the net, know. Law famously said that he was getting riled up and being kicked and,
thrown to the ground every second week. And it was signed along with Joe Baker, who came from Hibernian in Scotland. And it was sort of one of the trailblazers, I think that would be fair to say, one of the trailblazers in terms of British players going over to Italy. And it scored, as I said, 10 goals in 27 games.
He won the Serie A foreign player of the year that season, but he's best remembered for a horrible car crash he was involved in with Baker. The details are somewhat sketchy, but I think it's fair to say that he had both indulged in some nightlife in Turin. Loews. As you do. Loews' brother was there visiting him, and Joe Baker had just purchased an Alfa Romeo Giulietta on the very same day, and he decided to take it for a spin and take...
Law and his brother home. Now they never made it home because they clipped the curb on the way to Law's place and the car overturned and crashed against the monument in Turin, a monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi, the founder of modern Italy. And Law and his brother escaped, pretty much unscathed, Law had a minor scratch on his arm. They built them well back then. Well, yeah, but the thing is that...
Baker was in a coma and when he woke up he told the law and his brother had been killed and Law hadn't been killed he survived but he decided he'd had enough of Italy and of Turin So Matt Busby who'd wanted to take him to United a couple of years earlier came in with 110,000 pounds off of it. Massive money back then. Yeah, it works out about 31 million pounds these days. So you could say this probably worth a Romelu Lukaku, you know, I'll just
leave that out there, you can draw your own conclusions. The Scottish Romelu Lukaku of the 60s. Yes. Okay. that would allow them to make a 5,000 pounds profit on him. And Lowe wanted to leave Italy, wanted to go back to Britain, but Juventus had been so impressed by his performances for Torino, they came in with an offer that was 50,000 pounds higher. And Torino considered that because obviously back then it was a lot of money.
but he wanted none of it and he just fled the country. went back to Scotland and Torino were left with the situation, they had a player on the contract that was no longer there. And eventually Matt Busby did a lot of mediation and came in and convinced them to accept his offer even though he was lower than Juventus. And the rest is to say is history because he went on to United score 237 goals. Hat tricks, there was a record there.
18 hat tricks which is still a club record only Bobby Charlton Wayne Rooney score more goals than he has. And he won the Ballon d'Or in... In 1964 the first United player and the first Scottish player, the only Scottish player to ever win. So only two years after leaving... Yeah and I think that is also it's Law's there is a strange kind of thread running through his career.
because Torino, obviously, their Grande Torino team had been decimated by the Superga air disaster in 1949. And then it went on to become a Man United legend playing alongside Bobby Charlton, who had experienced the Munich air crash in 1958 with United. So there is a strange connection. But I think that going back to what I said at the start, the top of the segment about his career being one of sliding doors, imagine that Juventus going.
over the line. Juventus had won the league in 1961, but did not win the league until 1967. like the landscape of European football would have been incredibly different. We should mention there was a couple of Brits that won the Serie A in the early 60s, one at Inter, one at Milan. So it was Gerry Hitchens. Gerry Hitchens, who then replaced Law at Torino. Yeah, well, there you go. And I think obviously John Charles was a newbie in the late 50s, early 60s, and he left the same summer as Lowe left.
So obviously, Juve had identified Law as a replacement for John Charles, who went back to, I think he went back to Leeds in summer of 62. By the same token, everyone knows about Law going back to United and becoming European footballer of the year, winning the league twice, winning the FA Cup, winning the European Cup in 1968. But Joe Baker, his teammate who was involved in the same car crash, he went back to Britain as well and he scored over 170 goals for Arsenal and Forest.
The ironic thing, as someone pointed out to me today, is the forest playing voice called Garibaldi Red, because history has it that the red shirts are the same shade of red as the shirts that the Garibaldi troops, which were called the red shirts, wore during their campaign to unify Italy. And as someone pointed out to me on Twitter, it's somewhat ironic that someone who crashes into Garibaldi's monument then is so playing for a team.
who play in Garibaldi red. Do we have a drum roll effect here? I should mention, of course, full respect to Denis Law and his passing condolences go out to everyone around him, but you can't win games. You can't score goals without a good defender. And at that time in Torino, there was my namesake, Giorgio Ferrini, playing at the back, one of the butchers, seven times cap for Italy. We've got a Torino shirt just here in the studio, the Beretta went a long time after Law's appearance there. But what year is that, Dan? That is 1993.
92-93 season. We've done our best to deck the place out. The team was in full swing earlier on. Also, we have the Palermo one just behind Dan and Emmet. That is signed by Kristoffer Lund. yeah, there you go. So more interesting memorabilia. Well, if you'll mention the Atalanta one as well. Yeah, we've been to Bergamo. We've got the Atalanta Campione there. Emmet, just don't bend over backwards for us, will you?
Yeah, that is the limited edition shirt from them winning their Europa League trophy last year's on the battering Leverkusen That's the kind of thing they can do to you. So Conte's side doing well. But yeah, just back to Denis Law. Thanks for taking us through that Dan. Well versed great article. You can see that on destination calcio.com
