WHEN THE SCUM FELL FOUL OF THE LAW

Manchester United, surely one of the greatest and most successful clubs of all time. First English winners of the much-coveted European Cup and twelve times League Champions under the guidance of the inspirational Sir Matt Busby, they were the most supported and popular club in all the world, if not Manchester. And then it all went wrong. Busby, fed up with being an old man, resigned and was sent packing upstairs to sit with the other fossils in the directors' box. After him came a succession of crap managers brought in to try and somehow recapture the glory days. There was Wilf McGuinness, a former Busby Babe who had survived the Munich air disaster by tearing out his own hair and making a safety net. He was shit. Then came Frank O'Farrell from Leicester City, who had survived the Munich air disaster through not being there at the time. He was even worse. Such was the esteem what being Manchester United manager carried that nobody wanted the job. It was a poison double-edged chalice that no-one wanted to take up - Brian Clough, Bill Shankly, Don Revie, Joe Mercer, Iain Dowie's dad...no-one wanted the huge responsibility that came with being in the big seat at Old Trafford.

Of the great United players, Bobby Charlton, tired of being labelled the "baldest player in Britain", had left to take up a managerial position at Preston, where his baldness wouldn't be quite so obvious. George Best had announced his retirement at the age of 22 to concentrate on drinking heavily, shagging Miss Worlds and going to prison. Pat Crerand, disgusted at being axed from the side after forty years' loyal service, had gone off to sulk in a corner where he would stay for the next two decades. Brian Kidd had left to play for somebody else, and Dennis Law had been transferred, crossing the city to play in the sky blue colours of United's bitter local rivals at Manchester City. And it would be Dennis who would come back to haunt his former club.

In the season of 1973-74, United were, as the old saying goes, "too good to go down". They were, after all, Manchester United, the most famousest club in the world. It couldn't happen, surely. But in truth, by May of 1974, and before the fateful day in question, the damage to United's top flight status had already been done - their calamitous, catastrophic and disastrous season (the worst since 1958 when all that boring shit happened) having already put paid to that.

The afternoon of that May was indeed a defining moment in the history of the Old Trafford club, but just how shit were The Scum that year, the year that they hilariously fell from the old Division One and bombed to the humiliating depths of Division Two football? Well, judge for yourselves with a few facts and statistics.

1. They were so shit that skipper Martin Buchan, who had never scored in his previous 300 games, was their leading scorer with one goal going into the New Year.

2. Even shitter, he was overtaken in the scoring stakes by goalkeeper Alex Stepney who, because the rest of the team were so unutterably shit, had become the club's reluctant penalty-taker and netted a couple of spot-kicks.

3. And how shit is this? Desperate to find a goalscoring touch, The Scum signed Jim McCalliog from Wolves, a journeyman striker of no fixed skill. He came on as a sub and scored on the Saturday, then the following Wednesday he came on again and scored twice, thus becoming United's leading marksman after only half an appearance.

Watching their progress that season was, claimed some observers of the Beautiful Game, quite the funniest thing ever to happen since football had been invented back in the dark days of the 1800's. Indeed, in the National Comedy Awards that year, Manchester United's home defeat against Crystal Palace won the prestigious Best Comedy Show, beating the likes of Benny Hill, 'The Goodies', 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and 'The Wheeltappers & Shunters Social Club'. Sammy McIlroy won Best Newcomer and centre half Stewart Houston carried off the award for Funniest Defensive Moment in the Viewers' Choice category. One Derby County fan, Horace Twatt, 34, had a heart attack from laughing at his team's 4-0 demolition of The Scum at The Baseball Ground and died afterwards in hospital. It really was the funniest thing you have ever seen.

And so to that fateful Saturday afternoon. The last day of the season. United needed a draw to stay up and were facing...Manchester City. A defeat would send them crashing down, relegated, banished to pathetic life among the dregs of seventies soccer. They tried everything within their power to stay up - bribing City players, making death threats against Francis Lee and Mike Summerbee, stringing up Joe Corrigan's cat from his washing line. Everything. Scum fans, at their whining whingeing best, pleaded and begged City fans to get behind them and save their team. But it wasn't to be. At 0-0, and with just one second of the season left, the ball was played into the United area and there was Dennis Law. Dennis, always eager to accept a scoring chance, lifted his leg and back-heeled the ball past a bemused Alex Stepney, who was on his knees at the time praying. One half of Manchester erupted; the other half cried, just like they've been doing ever fucking since.

Manchester United were relegated.

Read that again: MANCHESTER UNITED WERE RELEGATED.

It was, agreed most pundits, as funny as fuck. The funniest thing to happen since the last funny thing to happen to Manchester United back in February of 1958. And that WAS funny. On BBC David Coleman, pausing to suck Leeds United players' dicks, said that he found it, frankly, hilarious. On ITV Jimmy Hill said he hadn't laughed so much since Duncan Edwards went into that coma. On Channel 4 no-one said anything because it hadn't been invented yet.

The Old Trafford club, so disgusted with Dennis Law's goal that day, formally removed any trace from their record books of Law ever having played for them - a ten-year career which took in four hundred appearances and five hundred goals. No-one would speak about him and the words "Dennis Law" were punishable at Manchester United by immediate sacking. Indeed, in his 1978 autobiography entitled 'Dennis Law Never Played For Us At All', Sir Matt Busby made such ludicrous denials himself: 'Dennis Law never played for us at all. Not once. And the proof is there for all to see on the team sheet for the 1968 European Cup Final. There's Charlton, Best, Kidd, Crerard and all the other wankers. But no Dennis Law. If he had played for us don't you think I'd have bloody well picked him? We did have a Derek Law on our books once, but he got blew up at Munich. No Dennis Law, though. Never.'

Manchester United player or not, Dennis Law's finest, and funniest, moment came when he sent The Scum plummeting from the Top Flight on that memorable May afternoon.
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The truth was
(i) Denis Law's goal didn't send them down. They were already down as Birmingham (I think) made themselves mathematically safe by scoring more points than The Golden Children could achieve in the game that was left in the season, not even under Demento, who would today probably ask for 90 minutes injury time to claim six points.
(ii) His sadness on scoring is legendary, having realised that even if someone from Chorlton won the Nobel Prize for Mathematics and introduced an updated points theory (Leeds tried to introduce one unsuccessfully around that time where a 0-0 draw scored four - it failed spectacularly [see ALAN CURTIS]), even that was too late. What no-one ever saw was offscreen, under the stands, he nips away to the toilet ostensibly to compose himself before meeting the press but instead has the mother and father of all wanks, climaxing to the word "TorinOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO".

He still owes Ray Wood £25 to this day

may well be true in part or in full bert but it detracts somewhat from nobby's much more pleasing scenario

Abdul Kowalski wrote:may well be true in part or in full bert but it detracts somewhat from nobby's much more pleasing scenario

On the contrary, Abdul, the thought of Denis Law not being contrite and spunking all over the door at Maine Road (sold on Ebay for a quarter of a million) because he put one over on his ex-employer is far more pleasing.

Would make a cracking scene in "Lawman: The Denis Law Story" as well

Manno Sanon is now on the Football pages for your delectation. The next three goals will be "Porterfield to Brooking - second class only" or alternatively "The Rough Guide to Europe - no Anglo-Italian Cup for us next season"

I may pilfer from this thread for the '76 coming up, Tony...