Trevor Francis

Trevor Francis
Francis in 1980
Personnel
Surname	Trevor John Francis
birthday	April 19, 1954
place of birth	Plymouth ,  England
position	striker
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1971-1979	Birmingham City	280 (119)
1978-1979	→  Detroit Express  (loan)	38 0(39)
1979-1981	Nottingham Forest	70 0(28)
1981-1982	Manchester City	26 0(12)
1982-1985	Sampdoria Genoa	68 0(17)
1985-1987	Atalanta Bergamo	21 00(1)
1987-1988	Glasgow Rangers	18 00(0)
1988-1990	Queens Park Rangers	32 0(12)
1990-1994	Sheffield Wednesday	76 00(5)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1976-1986	England	52 0(12)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1988-1990	Queens Park Rangers
1991-1995	Sheffield Wednesday
1996-2001	Birmingham City
2001-2003	Crystal Palace
1 Only league games are given.

Trevor John Francis (born April 19, 1954 in Plymouth ) is a former English football player and coach . During his playing days, he became the first player in English football history to be worth over £ 1 million.

Player career

Francis, a fast and technically skilled striker , started his career as a student at Birmingham City and made his first appearance there in 1970 when he was just 16 years old. His talent was evident before his 17th birthday when he scored four goals in a game. At the end of his first season, he had 15 goals in just 22 games.

Birmingham City have been an average team in the English top division since their promotion in 1972. Apart from the move into the cup semifinals, Birmingham could not record any successes worth mentioning, so that the performances of Francis stood out all the more clearly.

In 1977 he scored one of the most famous goals in Birmingham history when he pulled in from the touchline in the game against the Queens Park Rangers and suddenly pulled from about 23 meters while being harassed by four defenders surprised the opposing goalkeeper . In the same year he made his debut in the English national football team under coach Don Revie . England lost 2-0 to the Netherlands in this game .

Francis moved after an agreement with the club management from Birmingham in 1978 in the American professional league NASL to Detroit Express and returned to the Midlands in the same year . In February 1979 his career got a decisive spark.

Nottingham Forest , the reigning English champion and league cup winner at the time , trained by the legendary Brian Clough , offered Francis over £ 1 million. Previously, no player had cost a seven-figure sum in a transfer between English clubs. The transfer was made perfect on February 9, 1979, and Francis was introduced by Clough at a legendary press conference. Clough appeared in his tracksuit and squash racket .

Nottingham defended the league cup shortly afterwards, although Francis was not yet eligible to play, and made it to the semi-finals of the European Cup , when Francis was allowed to intervene. They won the semi-finals and faced the Swedish champions Malmö FF in Munich in May 1979 , when the million-dollar investment paid off before the end of the first half.

The usually luckless but talented John Robertson fought his way down the left side of the ball, pulled two defenders on him and crossed in the direction of the far post. Francis sprinted to the top and finished powerfully with a flat diving header to make it 1-0. Nottingham won the game with that all-important goal, and this scene was featured in the opening credits of the popular football show "Match of the Day" for several years. A giant picture showing Francis in anticipation of that historic header can still be seen today in the main entrance and reception area of ​​the home stadium. Although the season ended with this final victory, Francis then went back to Detroit to play for another summer in the NASL.

Francis never became a regular at Nottingham Forest for a long period of time. In 1980 he was a member of the team that was defeated in the league cup against Wolves , but also defended the national championship cup against Hamburger SV shortly afterwards . However, he could never meet the expectations in the form that were placed on him by the high fee. He scored fourteen goals last season and only six the following season. Although he continued to play for the English national team, he was unable to participate in the 1980 European Championship in Italy due to injury . In the English championship, the top positions for Nottingham had become more and more distant.

It was sold to Manchester City again in 1981 for a £ 1 million transfer (a sum that was now common after the line was crossed once). There he scored twelve goals in 26 games and was then in the squad of the English national team for the 1982 World Cup in Spain . There he scored goals against the CSSR and Kuwait , but in the second group stage he joined the storm of his fellow strikers, so that England were eliminated from the tournament after two goalless draws.

In the further course of the summer Francis was courted by Sampdoria Genoa , promoted from the Italian second division, where he then moved for 700,000 pounds. There he won the Coppa Italia in 1985 and was the top scorer in the competition with 9 goals before moving to Atalanta Bergamo , again a newcomer, for £ 800,000 , where he made a lot of games but only one goal. In 1986 he made his 52nd and last international match for England, which he won against Scotland . He scored a total of eleven goals for England.

Francis returned to the island and for only £ 75,000 joined the Glasgow Rangers under Graeme Souness in the course of his "English invasion" of Ibrox Park . He won the Scottish Cup in 1988 and then went to London as a player- coach for the Queens Park Rangers.

Although he continued to be an important player for QPR, his coaching style came under heavy public criticism, which accused him of being too strict. He refused one of his players to visit his wife during the birth of their first child because of an important game. The player did not follow the instructions, stood by his wife and Francis both fined him and criticized him publicly, which caused great misunderstanding in public.

Francis left the Queens Park Rangers in 1990 to join the relegated English Premier League, Sheffield Wednesday . Sheffield won the League Cup that season, with Francis not being used. In addition, the direct ascent could be achieved. After separating from Ron Atkinson , Francis took over the sporting direction of the team and led Sheffield to a very good third place in the following season. In the following year 1992 Francis reached both the finals of the FA Cup and the League Cup and was defeated by Arsenal in both matches . In 1994 Francis announced his retirement as a player.

Trainer career and other activities

After leaving Sheffield, Francis worked as a football expert for television, which he had done with success throughout his career, and then returned to the starting point of his career, Birmingham City, as a coach in 1996 to get the team back into the English top flight respectively. Birmingham reached the play-offs , but then failed in the playoffs . In 2001, Birmingham moved into the League Cup final against Liverpool , which they lost. Francis left Birmingham later that year.

He spent a short engagement at Crystal Palace . The only notable incident of the period occurred there when he beat his reserve goalkeeper, who was laughing at a goal from Crystal Palace.

Francis, who is married to his childhood sweetheart Helen, is now working again as a media expert.

On April 13, 2012, it was reported that Francis was admitted to Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham with a suspected heart attack .

successes

• European champion cup: 1979, 1980
• European Supercup winner: 1980
• Italian cup winner: 1985
• Scottish Cup Winner: 1988

literature

• Macey, Gordon: Queen's Park Rangers - The Complete Record . Breedon Books, 2009, ISBN 978-1-85983-714-6 , pp. 246-247 .

Web links

• Profile at "Singing the Blues"
• Trevor Francis in the soccerbase.com database
• Player data from Trevor Francis
• International match dates part 1
• International match dates part 2

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. 1979: Forest break football transfer record on BBC On This Day (accessed February 8, 2009)
2. ↑ Get well soon TF ( Memento from April 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on July 5, 2015