Writing in Peter Lorimer’s testimonial programme, legendary manager Don Revie left the following tribute to the great man...

‘To be a scout for a leading football club these days is rather like being a one-man industry.  The top scout has a brain like a computer, mentally filing and noting precise details of every promising player he sees; his strengths, his weaknesses, his background, his character.  He drives many thousands of miles  year, often to the most unlikely and remote spots in search of that priceless footballing talent that all clubs chase.

No longer is he the anonymous man in a raincoat and trilby standing on the touchline.  He needs to be known in his area so that his contacts can report potential talent to him.  On top of that he has to keep in constant touch with his club, filing reports and listing sightings.  He is an absolutely vital link in the chain that links a raw youngster playing on a pit spoil to the super athlete known the world over who is adulated by fans of his own club.

The First Division and international superstars you watch are the end product of that chain; the polished diamonds.  At Leeds United we are proud of our scouting network- it was one of the most vital aspects of our success.  And particularly so in Scotland, the traditional happy hunting ground for talent.  Thankfully the emphasis is still on skill, not the strength in Scottish schools.

It's an achievement indeed if you are able to win the race for the signatures of these talented youngsters.  In the early sixties- when Leeds were still, remember, a Second Division club- we pulled off a couple of signings that were to prove of inestimable value to the club.  First- after Maurice Lindley had run the rule over the boy himself- we signed Eddie Gray.

Maurice couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw for himself.  Then there was a youngster who had scored an astonishing 176 goals in a season for his school and local YMCA teams.  Another of our Scottish scouts, Johnny Quinn, spotted him playing in Dundee and saw his potential even though the boy in question was so frail he would have made Allan Clarke look like Tarzan.  The youngsters name… Peter Lorimer- and even then he packed a terrific shot and possessed that unique, uncoachable knack of scoring goals. 

Peter played for Scotland at Hampden in a schoolboy international- watched by us again- and the next day I had a call from Johnny to say that another club was all set to sign him (we later discovered 28 league clubs were after him).  So Maurice Lindley and I climbed into my car and set off for Scotland, leaving Leeds about eight o’clock that Sunday night.

We just managed to squeeze on the ferry- and looking back, I’m glad we did.  In fact, we were the last car on- at the other side we set off again and I was stopped for speeding as we hurtled through Perth in the middle of the night.  Fortunately that policeman was a football fan!  We arrived at Peter’s house at two in the morning, knocked up the whole house and signed him.  At eight o’clock the other club arrived only to find us having a cup of tea and Peter Lorimer a Leeds player by some hours!

Peter joined us at 15 and within three months we put him in the first team against Southampton at Elland Road.  When Billy Bremner was injured we had no hesitation in pitching him in.  Since then he’s played close on 600 games, scoring more than 200 goals- a record that speaks for itself.  I soon lost count of the number of goals he rammed in with that incredibly accurate right foot. 

It's well known that we stopped him shooting at full power at our goalkeepers in training so as not to risk injury.  With Peter the power is generated by follow-through.  Goalkeepers and defenders can never really spot a shot on its way because there is so little backlift.  It’s a special skill we never coached into him- he had it all the time.

Anything Peter connected with inside the box was inevitably a goal.  His accuracy and power was such that it often looked as if he had hit shots too close to the keeper.  But he knew there was no chance of stopping it.

One that springs to mind was his ‘goal’ in the European Cup Final- an immense, booming shot that would have taken Sepp Maier’s hands off had he got them to it.  But Billy Bremner was offside and, presumably, judged to be interfering with play- though he was probably trying to get out of the way as much as Maier!

Peter terrorised so many teams in Europe and that was our secret weapon.  They’d just never seen anything like him.  And with Scotland he travelled even further afield to show the world his talent. 

Every member of the Leeds team that challenged for all the game’s top honours at home and in Europe had a role to play.  Peter’s was more noticeable, perhaps, because he played up front.  He produced the impossible so often it was almost commonplace.

Like the killer goal area instincts of Allan Clarke, the exhilaration and inspiring leadership of Billy Bremner, the cool, sophisticated brilliance of John Giles, the shuddering tackling ability of Norman Hunter, Peter’s stunning shooting was priceless.'