Peter Lorimer dies - a Leeds hot shot with thunder in his boots.

 Peter Lorimer dies- a Leeds hot shot with thunder in his boots. 

The numbers are increasing quite rapidly and too distressingly for our liking. Footballers always seemed to live on even when they sadly pass away. Their spirt remains, their presence in the ether, somewhere, lurking impressively in the dusty corridors of football's past, never really dead as such but present on our lips always on the vine, spoken of in the warmest and most affectionate tones. 

This morning we learnt that Peter Lorimer died. It does sound very cold and clinical, almost final, the last chapter of the book, the end of an era but the names still strike at the heart, a bitter body blow for those who remember the Lorimer trademark. When Don Revie's delightful, fleet footed, twinkle toed darlings were waltzing through defences as if they were just specks of dust that just had to be brushed off as if they weren't there, most of us thought those names would live forever and today was some far off island. 

But Peter Lorimer undoubtedly had one of the hardest, fiercest, fearsome, ferocious shots ever seen in the Beautiful Game. Lorimer's shots were loaded with gunpowder, cordite, leaving a significant legacy wherever the Leeds of the 1970s travelled. Lorimer's shots could be heard in distant continents, palm tree fringed islands where the BBC World Service could only just be heard and then booming out from a cannon when Leeds United's Elland Road ground was jam packed to capacity. 

For a while now Lorimer has been in a hospice, seriously ill but without so much as a whimper of complaint. Now though the Leeds hotshot, known warmly as 'Lasher' has struck his last rocket shot, a lethal missile when released from either left or right foot. Lorimer was often known to score thunderbolts from way outside the edge of opposition penalty areas and goalkeepers were often tempted to take out medical insurance in case their fingers were struck, sprained or just damaged. Lorimer was perhaps the most essential component in a Leeds side that during the 1970s were unstoppable but controversial. 

Lorimer, although a trophy winner with Leeds, did endure the setbacks, the grave disappointments and those terrible moments of injustice that threatened to haunt him for the rest of his career. He won League titles with Leeds when Leeds were just flowing like a jar of honey with just a hint of molasses. But Lorimer also knew bittersweet moments when it didn't quite go for him. There were the traumas of coming second, goals disallowed, the frustration of knowing that he'd come close but not close enough. Of course Lorimer knew despondency and deflation because footballers have to be prepared.

Having joined Leeds as an angelic 15 year old teenager, Lorimer was bound to be wet behind the ears and still a developing adolescent but the young man seemed to grow up very quickly. With maturity, Lorimer became wiser with the passing of years and when Don Revie chucked him unceremoniously into the fire a couple of years later, the Scottish stick of dynamite picked up the baton and ran with it. 

Then the old First Division League championships would follow in quick succession perhaps too early but nonetheless eagerly appreciated by Lorimer. In 1973 he would join in with the general expectation, hype and hyperbole surrounding his team mates in that year's FA Cup Final. Surely Leeds would use the bulldozer to demolish Second Division Sunderland, red and white striped impostors at Leeds lavish party where victory would be savoured before half time. Leeds would smash Sunderland to smithereens. No sweat. No problem. 

But then fate intervened. Just when it seemed as though Norman Hunter and Trevor Cherry had locked up the Leeds defence with a secure Chubb key, thoughts turned to the lethal Leeds attack where Johnny Giles was chipping passes with precision engineering, a midfield landscape artist, strutting and swaggering, humiliating Sunderland with his very presence on the Wembley pitch. Then there was the fiery red head of Billy Bremner, captain and chief sparkler and firework, needling, winding up, provoking players but still a player of knowledge and a huge footballing intellect. 

And then Ian Porterfield, the Sunderland striker trapped the ball on his knee from a Sunderland corner and crashed home what would prove to be Sunderland's winning goal. Leeds promptly unleashed the artillery and cavalry, perhaps too much military hardware. The proverbial kitchen sink was thrown at Sunderland and Lorimer saw his moment of glory only to find that it was indeed just a figment of his imagination.

At the end of another frenzied, overwhelming attack on goal, Leeds sent all of their hungry troops forward desperately searching for a seemingly imminent equaliser. Sadly for Leeds this would be their bad day at the office where the printer wasn't working and the photocopier was on the blink. In a blizzard of shots in front of the Sunderland goal, Lorimer's shot from point blank range in front of Jim Montgomery, the  Sunderland keeper, was tipped onto the bar after Montgomery had, by some miracle of nature, flung himself across to push two shots onto the bar as a helpless Lorimer could only flick out at thin air. To this day it remains the most amazing double save in any FA Cup Final. 

Then two years later after Leeds had indulged in another spot of League title winning, Leeds went to Paris to take on the brilliantly organised and classy German side Bayern Munich in the 1975 European Cup Final. In an evenly balanced game both Leeds and Bayern Munich had gone toe to toe. Once again Lorimer came face to face with yet more rejection and heartbreak. When the ball fell to him perfectly outside the Bayern penalty area, the Scotsman leathered a low shot low and beyond the German keeper Sepp Maier which, for all the world, looked as if might be the winning, decisive goal for Leeds. 

Suddenly while Bremner, Giles, Madeley, Cherry and Jack Charlton were ready to celebrate on the Champs Elysees and the sweeping boulevards of Paris, along came the cruellest of decisions. The referee had blown for offside, the goal was chalked off and Bayern Munich went on to win the European Cup. Lorimer, in common with the rest of his downbeat and distraught colleagues could only stare at several bottles of red plonk and then hit the bars next to the Gare Du Nord with perfectly good reason. An understandable reaction.

Lorimer though would continue to  wear the white shirts of Leeds United with utter distinction, never objecting, sometimes questioning authority but always aware that the hardest shot in football would never be that far away. There were powerful pile drivers which rippled opposition nets or low, firmly driven shots that fizzed underneath  flailing opposition keepers. 

There is a school of thought that, by modern day standards, none could possibly compare to Lorimer. The medicine ball which weighed several tons in bygone years, is now almost as light as a feather. And yet Lorimer swung back his foot from any distance and scored goals that sent shock waves through the old First Division. The rocket had been delivered and the reverberations could be heard on the other side of the Pennines. 

Now though most of that celebrated Leeds side has now left the Elland Road building to a celestial game of five a sides where Billy Bremner is still shouting vociferously at his players for more effort, Johnny Giles is still painting pictures with his feet and Norman Hunter is probably biting knees. Peter Lorimer is the latest great to join his team mates in heaven. Farewell Peter Lorimer. We can still hear that shot. The last shot has been fired but if you listen carefully, you'll still hear it somewhere.