How Trevor Francis became Britain’s first £1m player after controversial transfer from Birmingham to Nottingham Forest

1 year ago 114

IN an era when Kylian Mbappe commands a transfer fee of £259million, it is hard to believe that there was time when just £1m could buy you a top player.

But that is exactly what happened when Trevor Francis completed a controversial transfer from Birmingham to Nottingham Forest in 1979.

Trevor Francis was Britain’s first £1million player[/caption]

In 1979 Francis completed a controversial transfer from Birmingham to Nottingham Forest[/caption]

Francis, who sadly passed away aged 69 after suffering a heart attack at his home in Marbella, became the first British footballer to command a £1m transfer fee.

Manager Brian Clough, who turned up at his unveiling wearing a tracksuit and sporting a squash racket, actually claimed the price tag was £999,999 to make sure the pressure didn’t go to Francis’ head.

But this didn’t seem to work, with Francis admitting to the Daily Mail via Goal in 2009: “I found myself trying to justify the £1m.

“You have to be yourself and play your own game. There was a pressure lifted when I got my first goal against Bolton.”

However, the fee of £1.15m was more than double the previous British record and was preceded by more than half a dozen transfer requests and weeks of wrangling over paperwork.

On his controversial move, Francis told the Guardian in 2011: “I signed on the Friday morning, during a spell when a lot of games were being called off.

“So on that Saturday, the following day, the Forest game was postponed and Cloughie decided I was short of match practice.

“So he played me in a parks game he had organised between the Forest and Notts County third teams… I played in front of 20 people and two dogs.”

He scored in the 1979 European Cup final[/caption]

Francis won 52 caps for England[/caption]

Francis also revealed how Clough gave him a dressing-down at half-time for not wearing shin pads, adding: “I got my first b*****ing off him, at half-time, for not wearing shin pads.

“You didn’t have to wear them in those days. I felt more comfortable without them but Cloughie said: ‘If you play for Nottingham Forest, you have to wear pads.’

“The following week I played for the first team and it suddenly dawned on me, at Portman Road, when the supporters sang ‘What a waste of money’ throughout the game.

“That’s when I started to realise how daunting it was to live up to this pressure.”

Just three months after the historic deal was struck, Francis was heading in the only goal against Malmo to secure the first of Forest’s back-to-back European Cups.

Francis, then 24, was a mid-season signing for Forest but was not a world record fee, with Giuseppe Savoldi and Paolo Rossi both having higher fees attached to them in Italy.

He would go on to score 28 goals in 70 appearances for Forest, adding the 1979 Super Cup and 1980 European Cup to his trophy cabinet before leaving to join Manchester City in 1981.

After a season at City, he became one of England’s more successful exports to Serie A during the 1980s.

Francis spent four seasons in Sampdoria and helped the Genoa club to their first Coppa Italia victory, alongside Graeme Souness, whom he would later play under for Rangers.

From teenage sensation at Birmingham City to a League Cup winner as a veteran at Sheffield, Francis was one of English football’s shining lights.

Francis won 52 England caps, scoring 12 times, including two at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.

After hanging up his boots he managed both QPR and Sheffield Wednesday – famously causing Eric Cantona to storm out after a trial for the Owls.