While looking for other schoolboy team photos, I came across this one from the mid-1950s.
It is the Aberdeen U/15 Schoolboys, who, I’m presuming, for us to have this photo, must have been in the Dundee or Tayside area to take on a local schoolboys select.
I have no idea, though, what the trophy is.
However, my main interest is the wee bespectacled lad on the extreme right of the photo.
He is no less than Denis Law and I would have thought, specs and all, that he would be a first-choice selection in any schoolboys team of his day.
Can any BwB reader remember seeing or playing against this team and, further, given a reason why ‘The Lawman’ didn’t get selected?
After all, it would be just a couple of months later that he would join the Huddersfield Town ground staff as a 15-year-old the first steps on the road to his magnificent career with Manchester City, Torino, Manchester United and, of course, Scotland.
The names on the back of the photo are not given in order as seen on the photo but in the old 2-3-5 formation.
Older readers may also instantly recognise the goalkeeper as John ‘Tubby’ Ogston.
Tubby went on to serve Aberdeen as first-choice goalie for many years in the 1960s and I saw him play for the Dons on a number of occasions in the early part of that decade.
Perhaps readers can also reveal if any of the other players went on to have decent careers in the senior game.
Players are (in 2-3-5) Ogston; Sim, Fraser; Duguid, Taylor, Dawson; Smith, Burns, Lornie, Douglas, Black. Reserves Fraser, Buchan, Law.
Law, who was awarded a CBE for his services to football, was born in 1940 and signed straight from school for English Second Division side Huddersfield Town. After four years at the Leeds Road club, Manchester City signed him for £55,000, setting a new British transfer record.
Law spent just one year there before Torino bought him for £110,000 this time setting a new record fee for a transfer between an English and an Italian club.
Although he played well in Italy, he found it difficult to settle there and signed for Manchester United in 1962, setting another British record transfer fee of £115,000.
He is probably best known for the 11 years he spent at United, where he scored 237 goals in 404 appearances second only to Bobby Charlton in the club’s goalscoring charts.
He is the only Scottish player in history to have won the prestigious European Footballer of the Year award, doing so in 1964, and helped Man U win the First Division in 1965 and 1967. He missed their European Cup triumph at Wembley in 1968, though, through injury.
Law left Manchester United in 1973 to return to Manchester City for a season, and represented Scotland at the 1974 World Cup. He retired in 1975.
He played for Scotland 55 times, scoring 30 goals. He also holds the Manchester United record for scoring 46 competitive goals in a single season.
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