Law spent one year there before Torino bought him for £110,000, this time setting a new record fee for a transfer involving a British player.

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 the only Scottish player to have won the Ballon d'Or award, doing so in 1964, and helped his club win the First Division in 1965 and 1967, as well as the FA Cup in 1963 and two Charity Shields.

[5][6] He went barefoot until he was 12 years old and wore handed-down shoes throughout his adolescence; his first pair of football boots came as a second-hand birthday present from a neighbour, which he received as a teenager.

[5] City had narrowly avoided relegation from Division 1 the previous season, and Law genuinely felt that Huddersfield had a better team at the time.

[citation needed] Although he had thought about leaving,[13] he was playing well and in 1961 Law scored six goals in an FA Cup tie against Luton Town.

[14] Although he enjoyed his time at City,[15] he wanted to play in a more successful side and was sold to the Italian club Torino in the summer of 1961 for a British record of £110,000.

[5][17] Players in the UK were not treated well at the time, and the maximum wage for footballers had only recently been abolished, so Law was pleasantly surprised to find that pre-season training was based in a luxury hotel in the Alps.

[5] However, Torino used performance-related pay scheme, giving the players large sums of money when the team won, but little, if any, when they lost.

He responded by flying home to Aberdeen, knowing that Torino would not get a penny in transfer fees if he refused to play at Juventus.

[note 1][5][22] The lifestyle and culture of a foreign country was an eye-opener for the young Scotsman, and the medical expertise and sports science in Italy was far ahead of what was available in the UK at the time.

[17] Ultimately though, Law found the football to be joyless and overly defensive, with him being subjected to violent man marking and heavy tackling on a frequent basis.

[17] His total of 10 Serie A goals stood as a record for a Scottish player until Lewis Ferguson of Bologna surpassed it 61 years later.

They found form in the FA Cup though, with Law scoring another hat-trick in a 5–0 win against his old club Huddersfield Town, and they went on to reach the final against Leicester City.

Leicester were favourites, having finished fourth in the league, but Law scored the first goal as United won 3–1 in what turned out to be the only FA Cup final of his career.

Law later said that "in the eyes of some referees, I was a marked man" and blamed the incident for the "staggeringly heavy punishments" that he received later in his career.

Despite the lack of silverware, Law enjoyed a prolific goalscoring season and finished the campaign with 46 goals in all competitions, still a club record today.

In 1966, Law asked United's manager Matt Busby to give him a pay rise at his next contract renewal, and threatened to leave the club if he did not get one.

[37] Law was regularly given cortisone injections to ease the pain, but playing while the knee was still injured was causing long-term damage.

Having scored seven times in the 10–2 aggregate first round victory over Waterford United, Law finished as top scorer in the tournament with 9 goals.

They made a good start to the 1971–72 season and finished 1971 five points clear at the top of the league, with Law having scored twelve goals.

[43] Law recommended that United replace O'Farrell with Tommy Docherty, whom he knew from his time playing with the Scottish national side.

[47] He made 27 full appearances and two as substitute in that season, including City's 2–1 defeat in the League Cup final against Wolves.

[41] Law had a contract with Manchester City for the 1974–75 season, but new manager Tony Book told him that he would only be playing reserve team football if he stayed at the club.

On 23 February 2002, a statue of Law (alongside George Best and Bobby Charlton) was unveiled at Old Trafford, in the part of the stadium known as the Scoreboard End.

[67] The emergence of Dutch international Dennis Bergkamp in the 1990s uncovered a story that the player's parents were fans of Law and named their son after him.

In February 2010, Law was named as patron of the UK based charity Football Aid, taking over from the late Sir Bobby Robson.

[71] In 2012, he established the Denis Law Legacy Trust, a registered charity that operates programmes and activities focussed around community engagement and widening sporting participation.

[72] The charity aims to reduce instances of youth crime and anti-social behaviour; promote health and wellbeing and encourage inclusivity through sport, physical activity and creative endeavour[73] collaborating on community projects like Scotland's first Cruyff Court in Aberdeen.

[75][76] Law was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to football and charity.