Peter inspired Lori-load of copycats
LONG before anyone wanted to bend it like Beckham, we all wanted to lamp it like Lorimer.
In the 1970s, the hottest shot in football was responsible for a pilot Neighbourhood Watch scheme.
If the kids next door were playing in the back garden, you were always looking out of the window because the next ball sailing over the fence was only a couple of minutes away.
Especially if one of the little urchins was trying to belt the living daylights out of it like
SAMBA
BEAT Lorimer at World Cup
in 1974
Peter Lorimer. The last 12 months have been cruel to everyone, but for disciples of Leeds United it has been especially horrid.
From Don Revie’s dynasty in all-white, we have lost Jack Charlton, Norman Hunter, Trevor Cherry and, now, one of football’s most respected flowers of Scotland, the great Lorimer.
Search the internet and you’ll find clips of his finest goals. The harder he struck his shot, the sweeter it flew.
Lorimer’s death, at the age of 74 after a long illness, feels like another star extinguished in the night sky.
You didn’t have to support Leeds to admire that right foot with its own nuclear warhead. You didn’t have to be
Scottish to be out of your seat when Lorimer scored against Zaire at the World Cup in 1974.
And you certainly didn’t have to believe in the ‘dirty Leeds’ propaganda to marvel at his impeccable manner if you popped into his pub, the Commercial in Holbeck, for a snifter or a chat.
For Leeds fans, the greatest cruelty of all – after this unspeakable year of mourning in lockdown – is that Charlton, Hunter, Cherry and now Lorimer have left the stage without the send-off they richly deserved.
When the all-clear klaxon is sounded, surely there will be a memorial service for those four horsemen of Revie’s cavalry.
Thanks for the memories, Peter. At least when you asked if you could have your ball back, the opposition keeper only had to retrieve it from his net, not next door’s garden.
DJHDHGDHGDHGJHDGHGD picked up and was playing football. I Kolo Toure, now a coach at the King managed to break a window. They Power, has taken him under his wing. punished me for that and suspended me But it has not been easy for Fofana from school for one week. who, despite that club-record fee, still had
“But there were no hard feelings to run the gauntlet when it was afterwards and I was forgiven.” announced he was leaving.
Fofana lists Marseille old boy Didier He added: “It was tough for
Drogba (right) as one of his heroes. And me and my family – for them he bumped into another when he joined especially as it had nothing to the Foxes. do with them.
Fofana’s roots lie in the Ivory Coast and “When Leicester came in for former Arsenal and Liverpool favourite me, they presented their project
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to me. I was 100 per cent sure that was where I wanted to go. St Etienne didn’t agree.
“I wanted to leave. They said: ‘No’. The coach (ex Foxes chief, Claude Puel) didn’t want me to go either.
“Some supporters weren’t happy. Things were said. But I didn’t let that affect me. I built a wall around myself.
“They wanted what was best for their team, I understand that.
Right now, everything has worked out for the best.”
And how. Despite his tender years and experience, Fofana turned in one of his best displays against Manchester United during a 2-2 draw at the King Power earlier this term.
Boss Brendan Rodgers says he knew from the centre-half’s first day the club had a star, adding: “His first session, his awareness of space, how he passed the ball and his aggression really stood out.”