He could skip across the murk and hang in the air as if suspended by wires By Jim White (Filed: 04/10/2003)
Denis Law isn't an Earl Grey man. Sitting in the palm court of a snazzy London hotel this week, he was offered a whole raft of fancy infusions by the waiter. Everything from buttercup and lime to ginseng and loganberry. But he took particular offence at the aristocratic fancy Dan of teas. "Earl Grey? Jesus, no. Rots your brain that stuff," he said. "Got any bog-standard builders', son?" Law will be in need of some strong mugs of mental sustenance over the next few weeks. Like Nobby Stiles, Jimmy Greaves, Bob Wilson and several other sportsmen of a certain age, he will be relentlessly out on the road, promoting his new autobiography. "I know," Law laughed. "Everybody's at it. I reckon all these publishers think we'd better get the stories out before we all pass away. Perhaps they know something we don't. I keep on expecting us all to meet up at the same bookshop." It is a wonderful thought, that. A coincidence in the timetabling which sees Law, Greaves, Stiles and Wilson all fetch up in the same Borders book shop at the same time to sign their tomes. The old competitive flames would quickly re-flicker, a little league table established between them as to who could flog the most. "Mind you," Law suggested, "you'd have to watch your shins if you ended up at the same one as Stilesy." As it happens, the reason all these oldies are out on the road is that research has shown the biggest market for sports book is the 50-plus male. And the 50-plus male wants books about the heroes of his generation, not about Wayne Rooney. It was buyers like this who made such a huge success of autobiographies by Murray Walker, Geoff Hurst and, most of all, Dickie Bird. Now every publisher wants a bit of Dickie. So several of those sportsmen who thought their day in the limelight had long passed find themselves back centre stage once more. But there is a caveat: they are made to work. What the 50-plus male buyer wants most of all is a signed copy, with the chance to shake hands with his idol thrown in. So out to the bookshops go the old boys; Greaves is visiting 75 in the next couple of months. Law, too, is off all over: to his home town of Aberdeen, to his adopted home in Manchester and, being an ex-United player, to places where he is likely to meet his fans, like Milton Keynes. The bookshops had better make sure they are well stocked. There is no question the buyers will be out in force to greet him. When United's great trinity of Law, George Best and Bobby Charlton were in their pomp at Old Trafford in the Sixties, the connoisseurs in the main stand favoured Bobby, the flash, the fly-by-night and the women went for George, but for the lads on the terraces there was no doubt. They used to sing a song in the Stretford End to the tune of the Scaffold's Lily the Pink, which went: We'll drink a drink a drink To Denis the king the king the king The leader of our football team His book is rightly called The King, and has a wonderful cover, an evocative tinted print of Law in a scarlet United shirt, with a round, white collar. You can tell by the way the material is taut around his shoulders that the shirt cuffs are being pulled down over his hands, in the manner that we kids in Manchester playgrounds at the time all used to emulate. Even the City fans. And below the characteristic stack of straw-coloured hair, he is grinning like only Law could. Gordon Banks remembers that puckish smirk. The goalkeeper recalls in his own recent autobiography once in a game against Scotland diving into a melee of players, grabbing the ball and holding on to it gratefully. Then being aware, as he opened his eyes, of a pair of legs standing right over him. He looks up, over the knobbly knees, and sees Law staring down on him, grinning. "Aye, Gordon," says Law. "And I'll always be here. Just waiting." We remember Law as the great predator, a slim-hipped wisp in there where it hurt. In the days of heavy balls and mud-encrusted pitches, he could skip across the murk and hang in the air as if suspended by wires. He was just as quick at getting in his retaliation, often administering it well before it had been provoked. But what players like him can offer a reader beyond the tales of muddy glory, is a glimpse into life after sport, when the crowd noise stops and they are faced with reality as we substantially lesser mortals know it. It won't happen to today's leading players, set up for life as they are. But Law, after his last game as a professional footballer - against Zaire in the 1974 World Cup finals - was immediately obliged to go out and find work. "There were no boot deals, no car, nothing, absolutely zilch, man. I once got put on the transfer list for asking Matt Busby for a five-bob-a-week rise. After I quit, I'd not a thing worked out. You had to do something, necessity dictated it. You had to work because there was the family back home, I had five kids." It was, he recalls, "bloody hard" being confronted by the real world for the first time. "You had everything done for you, as a player, lived in a bubble. Suddenly you're on your own. That's why so many old pros took to drink. That was the difference between me and Bestie. I had to keep my head together for the family." Best had his own way of coping with the premature death that is the end of a playing career. It is an approach documented in yet another of his autobiographies - his fifth - published this autumn (Best has to keep coming out with them, if only to update the photo of the blonde on his arm above the perennial caption: "And this time it really is for ever"). Law still keeps in touch with Best, incidentally, but is wary of discussing his old friend's latest acceleration into self-destruction. A look of sad exhaustion enters his eyes at the very mention of the subject. "All I say is this," he said. "In life it's always easy to give advice. Sometimes it's not so easy to accept it." Intriguingly, though their names are forever linked, Law has never commanded the kind of post-football money Best has. He lacks, too, the financially rewarding great-and-good gravitas of Charlton. Thus he reckons he will be working for the rest of his life, speaking at dinners, doing a bit of broadcasting, trying to ride the nostalgia wave. He says it is not a bad way to earn a living, though there is one drawback. "People tell me things I honestly don't remember," he said. "But you know, as you get older, you forget the bad things, you only remember the good. You remember the good nights, the good company, the great games. Not the ones you were shite in." Which is why The King is a sizeable tome: Denis Law has had an awful lot of good times. The King, by Denis Law (Bantam), is available for £15.99 + £2.25 p&p. To order please call Telegraph Books Direct on 0870 155 7222. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/tsUolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> *************************************** Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe from the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
