He was a five-stone (32kg) weakling with a warrior spirit.

His shock of hair would be copied by Rod Stewart and he had the feet of Rudolf Nureyev.

“Never did I see a less likely football prospect – weak, puny and bespectacled,” said his first manager, Andy Beattie.

Denis Law, who heard the final whistle on Friday, was the last of arguably the finest attacking trio in football history and Scotland’s greatest player.

Law, Best and Charlton. Best, Law and Charlton. Charlton, Law and Best. The order doesn’t matter: though very different in style, they are revered as equals.

They are, after all, the Holy Trinity, bound together in bronze on their celestial plinth at Old Trafford.

And in football’s loftiest pecking order, up there with the immortals.

Along with Garrincha, Didi and Pele; Puskas, Di Stefano, Gento; and from the modern era, Messi, Suarez, Neymar is the sort of company they keep.

Law is in the centre, his right arm raised, index finger pointing skywards as it was 237 times in 404 games for Manchester United.

Only Bobby Charlton and Wayne Rooney have scored more.

It was the first personalised goal celebration and a touch of flamboyance that had not been evident when he arrived at his first club, Huddersfield Town.

Spotted by Beattie’s brother, who was scouting in Aberdeen, Huddersfield sent an official to meet the boy, then 15, at the railway station.

After carefully perusing all the disembarking passengers, the man returned to the ground empty-handed, insisting that no one fitting the description of a footballer had stepped off the train.

Fortunately, a pale, cock-eyed kid in thick glasses had since presented himself. As the boy appeared a sickly specimen with a squint, the official was forgiven.

Even Bill Shankly, who would take over as Huddersfield boss shortly afterwards, agreed: “He looked like a skinned rabbit. But with a ball, he could dance on egg shells.”

Shanks, who went on to Liverpool next, was desperate to sign him for the Reds and it was one of his greatest regrets that the club couldn’t afford him.

Once Law’s eye was fixed – he’d played his junior football with one closed – the game wondered what he might do with both available.

He did not disappoint. Sight corrected and beefed up with steaks and potatoes, he channelled his inner Braveheart to become a lethal predator.

“We only had meat once a week at home and that was for my dad,” he recalled of his poverty-stricken childhood.

One of seven children to a fisherman, he had been barefoot until 12 and was 14 before he wore football boots.

But while he enjoyed the food south of the border, he was homesick and threatened to go back.

He did so for every New Year celebration by getting himself suspended and sent his laundry back to his mum by post.

Wearing his shirt outside his shorts, sleeves rolled down and cuffs curled into his fist, it became his trademark and, copied by a million schoolboys, he was no longer in danger of being missed.

It was Manchester City who stumped up a British record £55,000 to sign him before what he called “the lure of the lira” tempted him to Italy.

Although he bagged a respectable 10 goals in 28 games for Torino, he loathed Serie A’s tight marking and even tighter scrutiny off the field.

He and Anglo-Scot pal Joe Baker got in a few scrapes and not even a huge offer from Juventus could change his mind.

The upshot was that Manchester United paid a new record £110,000 to bring him back.

Matt Busby was rebuilding after the Munich crash and in Law, had acquired one of his key components.

It might also have been destiny. Four years earlier, Law had travelled to see the club’s first match after the disaster, paying “Ten times the price for a ticket”.

He added: “The emotion that night outside the ground from about 4.30pm was amazing.”

Also typical of the man, his choice for a book I wrote called “Match of My Life”, was the relatively low-key 1963 FA Cup final win over Leicester City in which he scored against Gordon Banks.

The following year, the barefoot boy who became “The King” won the Ballon d’Or, the only Scot ever to do so.

Always at his best for his country, he’s still the equal top scorer with Kenny Dalglish on 30 goals. It took Dalglish 100 games, Law just 55.

Once Best emerged, there was no stopping the Devils from finally achieving Busby’s goal of winning the European Cup.

With Best mesmerising, Charlton crashing in thunderbolts and Law creating disorder of his own, the Cup was won in 1968.

The only sad thing was Law missed the final through injury.

My endearing memory of him as a player was a melee in the goalmouth, a heap of bodies, the ball somehow going into the net. And above the heap, an arm was raised and a finger pointed skywards. Somehow, the Law Man had the last word.

Along with the scruffy goals were the screamers. Overhead kicks, goals from impossible angles and fearless headers amid a thicket of studs. He was a scorer of all sorts.

A typical Law goal was last week’s header by Diogo Jota for Liverpool against Forest, stealing in between two hulks half a head taller than him – and finding the back of the net.

When he came to Malaysia, I had the pleasure of meeting him and he was just as affable as he had been fearsome on the field.

And was at pains to play down the infamous back-heel (when back playing for City) that relegated United as well as the role of the headline-grabbing Holy Trinity.

“It was an accident, a freak,” he said of what turned out to be his last kick of a ball in anger.

As for the three immortals, he said: “People always talk about us, but there were great players right through that side.

“Nobby Stiles was a far more intelligent player than given credit for while Pat Crerand made us tick. We were all different and did our jobs.”

That said, the last word has to go to Shankly.

When the manager was talking down the United players one by one in a pre-match speech to his Liverpool team, one piped up: “But what about Law, Best and Charlton?”

Quick as a flash, Shanks quipped: “You mean you can’t beat a team of three men?”

Only Old Father Time ever has.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.