Born in Kirkcaldy on December 18th, 1958 Gordon John Latto was to become a highly respected defencemen in the Heineken League era.
Five years old when he first started skating, Latto began playing hockey three years later in Kirkcaldy for the Fife Flyers. Apart from the 1975/76 season, which as a teenager he spent in Sweden and five games in the 1982/83 season with the Dundee Rockets, Gordon Latto played his whole career with the Flyers taking part in well over six hundred games.
Originally a centre, he dropped back on to the blueline and became a very solid performer throughout his career. Between 1976 and 1979, he was three years in a row, the Northern League Player of the Year and also went on to achieve a hat trick of All Star selections from ’77 to ’80. As the Northern League’s top scorer in the 1979/80 season, he won the Earl Carlson Trophy and he went on to be a member of the Fife team that won the Heineken British Championship at Wembley in 1985.
Gordon Latto’s domestic statistical record spanned a fifteen-year period from 1983 to 1998 and reads:- GP 656 Goals 170 Ass 416 Pts 586 PIM 402
In those days when the Great Britain team really was British, Gordon Latto represented his country in four World Championships between 1976 and 1989. On national team duty, he posted figures of:- GP 21 Goals 2 Ass 2 Pts 4 PIM 10
In the days when players move around from club to club regularly, many a coach would like to enlist the kind of dedicated and loyalty personified in Gordon Latto.
Compiled with research, provided by Martin C.Harris – March 1999