Peter Patrick Lorimer (14 December 1946 – 20 March 2021) was a Scottish professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugb ...

, best known for his time with

Leeds United Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

during the late 1960s and early 1970s. An

attacking midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

and the club's youngest-ever player, he was renowned for his powerful strikes from distance. From 1984 to 1985 he was club captain. Lorimer is the club record scorer with 238 goals in all competitions. He was voted Leeds' ninth greatest player ever and on to the greatest Leeds United team of all time. After retiring as a player, Lorimer became a member of the Leeds board of directors, provided match commentary on BBC Radio Leeds and

Yorkshire Radio Yorkshire Radio was a British digital radio station serving Yorkshire on DAB. The station was owned by Leeds United A.F.C. and broadcast live coverage of all first-team games, alongside pop music from the 1960s to 2013. History Yorkshire Radio ...

and wrote a regular column in the ''

Yorkshire Evening Post The ''Yorkshire Evening Post'' is a daily evening publication (delivered to newsagents every morning) published by Yorkshire Post Newspapers in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The paper provides a regional slant on the day's news, and traditi ...

''. From April 2013 he held the position of club ambassador.

Early life

Lorimer was born in

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

to Janet and Peter Lorimer and was brought up in

Broughty Ferry Broughty Ferry (; Scottish Gaelic: ''Bruach Tatha''; Scots: ''Brochtie'') is a suburb of Dundee, Scotland. It is situated four miles east of the city centre on the north bank of the Firth of Tay. The area was a separate burgh from 1864 until 191 ...

on the edge of the city. He attended Eastern Primary School and later Stobswell Secondary School, where he played for the school's football team.

Club career

Leeds United

After playing junior football in Dundee for Stobswell Boys and Broughty YMCA, Lorimer signed for

in May 1962 after scoring for the Scotland Schoolboys team in a 4–2 win over England. He made his Leeds debut on 29 September 1962 against

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

, aged 15 years and 289 days, becoming the youngest player to play for the first team. Lorimer came to regular prominence in the 1965–66 season, making 34 League Championship appearances and scoring 19 goals, more than any other player at Leeds United managed that season. A skilful and industrious player who operated best in a drifting position either wide on the right (though not as an orthodox winger – he was more likely to cut in and shoot than stay wide and cross) or behind two main strikers (usually Allan Clarke and Mick Jones), Lorimer was a frequent and often spectacular goalscorer, earning himself several nicknames stemming from his powerful shooting – ''HotShot'' and ''Lash'' being two of the more prevalent. He became renowned for these strikes, with his shots reaching speeds of up to 90 mph. One penalty kick was recorded at 107 mph. In the 1966–67 season, Lorimer made his first major headlines when a free-kick equaliser against

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

in an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football compet ...

semi-final was controversially ruled out by referee

Ken Burns Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV and/or th ...

and retaken, for the Chelsea players had not retreated the necessary 10 yards. Chelsea held on to win the game. In the

1975 European Cup Final The 1975 European Cup Final was a football match between Bayern Munich of West Germany and Leeds United of Yorkshire, England, played on 28 May 1975 at the Parc des Princes in Paris. It was the final match of the 1974–75 season of Europe's pre ...

, Lorimer scored to give Leeds a 1–0 lead, only for the goal to be controversially disallowed by referee Michel Kitabdjian, with Leeds going on to lose the game. In summer 1971, Lorimer had a short spell on loan at Cape Town City in South Africa. Lorimer left the club in 1979, having scored 219 goals in 616 appearances. During this time he had won two League titles, an

, a

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

, a Charity Shield, and two

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, sometimes referred to as the European Fairs Cup, Fairs Cities' Cup, or simply as the Fairs Cup, was a European football competition played between 1955 and 1971. It is often considered the predecessor to the UEFA Cup ( ...

Later career

He played for

York City York City Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of York, North Yorkshire, England. As of the 2022–23 season, the team compete in the National League, at the fifth tier of the English football league sys ...

and then tried his luck in the

North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League may refer to: *North American Soccer League (1968–1984), a former Division I league *North American Soccer League (2011–2017) The North American Soccer League (NASL) was a professional men's soccer league ba ...

(NASL). Lorimer played for two clubs: the

Toronto Blizzard Toronto Blizzard may refer to: *Toronto Blizzard (1971–1984), the original soccer club, a franchise of the North American Soccer League *Toronto Blizzard (1986–1993), the later club and franchise of the Canadian Soccer League *Toronto Azzurri B ...

(1979–1980) and the

Vancouver Whitecaps Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional soccer team based in Vancouver. They compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The MLS iteration of the club was established on March ...

(1981–83). In January 1983 he signed for

University College Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 33,284 student ...

. Lorimer returned to Leeds United in 1983, aged 37, two seasons after Leeds had fallen into the

Football League Second Division The Football League Second Division was the second level division in the English football league system between 1892 and 1992. Following the foundation of the FA Premier League, the Football League divisions were renumbered and the third t ...

. He played under former team-mate Eddie Gray (more than a year his junior) and broke the club's goalscoring record in the process, ending up with 238 goals from 705 appearances until retiring just before his 40th birthday at the end of the 1985–86 season. However, Leeds were still a Second Division team when Lorimer played his final game for them and it would be another four years before they returned to the First Division.

International career

Lorimer made his international debut for

against

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in November 1969. He won 21 caps for

and scored four goals, having played in all three of their matches at the

1974 FIFA World Cup The 1974 FIFA World Cup was the tenth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in West Germany (and West Berlin) between 13 June and 7 July. The tournament marked the first time that the ...

. His Scotland career was, however, affected by a ban imposed on him in 1971 after he spent a summer playing for Cape Town City in apartheid-era South Africa.

After playing

In his retirement Lorimer ran the Commercial Inn pub in the

Holbeck Holbeck is an inner city area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It begins on the southern edge of Leeds city centre and mainly lies in the LS11 postcode district. The M1 and M621 motorways used to end/begin in Holbeck. Now the M621 is th ...

area of the city. Lorimer remained a dedicated spokesman for Leeds United after retirement – he was always one of the first ex-players to whom broadcasters and journalists turned when the club was in the news. He worked as a pundit at games for

BBC Radio Leeds BBC Radio Leeds is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of West Yorkshire. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at St Peter's Square in Leeds. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience ...

and as a columnist for the local paper, the ''

''. He wrote a column in the club's match programme (his final one being the match against Aston Villa on 27 February 2021) and acted as a summariser for Yorkshire Radio on every Leeds away match. On 26 February 2021, it was announced that Lorimer had been placed under hospice care due to a long-term illness. He died on 20 March 2021, aged 74.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Scotland goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Scotland goal''.

Honours

Leeds United *

Football League First Division The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...

: 1968–69, 1973–74 *

: 1971–72; runner-up: 1969–70, 1972–73 *

Football League Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by t ...

: 1967–68 *

FA Charity Shield The Football Association Community Shield (formerly the Charity Shield) is English football's annual match contested at Wembley Stadium between the champions of the previous Premier League season and the holders of the FA Cup. If the Premier L ...

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

; runner-up:

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; ...

: 1967–68, 1970–71; runner-up: 1966–67 *

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

runner-up: 1974–75 *

European Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tournam ...

runner-up: 1972–73 Individual * Leeds United Player of the Year: 1971–72

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lorimer, Peter 1946 births 2021 deaths 1974 FIFA World Cup players Expatriate association footballers in the Republic of Ireland Expatriate soccer players in Canada Expatriate soccer players in the United States Expatriate soccer players in South Africa Expatriate footballers in Israel Association football wingers Leeds United F.C. players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players Footballers from Dundee Scotland international footballers Scottish expatriate footballers Scottish expatriate sportspeople in Canada Scottish expatriate sportspeople in the United States Scottish expatriate sportspeople in Ireland Scottish expatriate sportspeople in South Africa Scottish expatriate sportspeople in Israel Scottish footballers English Football League players Cape Town City F.C. (NFL) players Hapoel Haifa F.C. players Liga Leumit players Toronto Blizzard (1971–1984) players University College Dublin A.F.C. players League of Ireland players Vancouver Whitecaps (1974–1984) players York City F.C. players Scotland under-23 international footballers Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees Scotland amateur international footballers Whitby Town F.C. players National Football League (South Africa) players FA Cup Final players