Days from the anniversary of his record move to Nottingham Forest, Francis discuss Clough, six failed transfer requests and his ongoing pride“I played professional football for 23 years until I was 39, I won European Cups with Nottingham Forest, I played 52 times over nine years for England, but whenever I go to a sporting occasion I’m always introduced as the first £1m footballer, as if that’s the only thing I achieved in my career,” says Trevor Francis, as he looks forward to the 40th anniversary of the day that he smashed the British transfer record by moving from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest.While he was at Birmingham the Guardian described the prospect of Francis being sold as “like a Rembrandt coming on to the open art market”. When he was finally made available nearly half the First Division was said to be interested – at least until they heard how much they would have to pay. Not only had no British club spent as much as £1m on a footballer before, only one had paid more than £500,000 – and that was a few weeks earlier, when West Bromwich Albion lavished £516,000 on Middlesbrough’s David Mills. Only two clubs had pockets deep enough to match Birmingham’s asking price: Forest and Coventry City, who proposed a novel joint-ownership scheme with Detroit Express, the American team controlled by the Coventry chairman Jimmy Hill with whom Francis had played the previous summer. Related: Memory Lane: 1980s footballers at home – in pictures Continue readingreadfullarticle
