Dennis Viollet, Manchester United player

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Dennis Viollet was one of Manchester United’s greatest ever goal-scorers. His thirty-two league goals in 1959-1960 is still a club record for league goals in one season.

Viollet was a local boy. He was born and brought up in Manchester, albeit as a Manchester City supporter. He was a successful schoolboy footballer, captaining Manchester and representing England. He was one of the early products of the Joe Armstrong youth scheme. He joined Manchester United at fifteen, played his first senior game at nineteen, and undoubtedly qualified as one of Busby’s babes. After first playing on the right wing, Viollet soon became an inside forward and formed, in the mid-fifties, a highly effective goal-scoring partnership with Tommy Taylor. (It was a partnership many felt should have been replicated for England, but Viollet only played for his country twice.) The partnership was destroyed at Munich, when Taylor was killed. Viollet survived, but with head injuries that kept him away from football for most of the remainder of that season. Even without his partner, Viollet continued to score goals. In 1959-1960 he scored thirty-two in thirty-six league matches, a league total for a season that remains a Manchester United record. In 1962, when he was still only twenty-eight, Viollet was transferred to Stoke City. It seems that he and Matt Busby fell-out over wages. Fortunately for Manchester United, David Herd and Denis Law took Viollet’s place as the goal scorers. Viollet had a successful period in Stoke, before then playing in the USA and then Ireland. On retirement he turned to coaching, much of which was done in America, where he made his home.

Viollet didn’t have the usual build of a striker. He was slight and never looked particularly strong. He did, however, have the skills. He was exceedingly quick, he had good positional sense and a goal-scorers instinct. He was a stylish player, with precise ball control, good vision, and the ability to pass well. In his partnership with Tommy Taylor, it was Taylor who was the more conventional centre-forward, with Viollet offering clever support. He wasn’t particularly good at heading the ball, but that didn’t prevent him becoming one of the club’s top goal-scorers. Only Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and Jack Rowley have scored more goals for Manchester United.

Dennis Viollet enjoyed the lifestyle of a successful footballer. In his young days, he was a sophisticated part of the Manchester social scene, with a keen fashion sense, and quite a reputation among the city’s female population.

In his sixties, Viollet sadly developed a brain tumor and died in Florida in 1999, aged just sixty-five.