In December 1978, the 24‑year‑old Trevor Francis shambled on to the stage to receive the Midland Football Writers’ Player of the Year award from Brian Clough. Although never a fastidious dresser himself, Clough looked him up and down and told him off for having his hands in his pockets. Francis, then at Birmingham City, was one of the most hyped players in English football at the time, but he meekly withdrew his hands and muttered: “Yes, sir.” Two months later, Clough made him the first million-pound British footballer by signing him for Nottingham Forest.
Perhaps after a youth as gilded as Francis’s had been, making his debut for Birmingham at the age of 16 and scoring 15 goals in his first 22 games, perhaps after setting a landmark fee, it was impossible for him to live up to expectations. Perhaps the expectations were never realistic. Francis had a perfectly decent career. He won two European Cups (although he played in only one final). He won league cups in Scotland and England, as well as a Coppa Italia. He played 52 times for England, scoring a dozen goals. But there was a sense that he did not quite achieve the heights that seemed possible in that season of his debut. But then who could have?
Clough was happy enough to boast about breaking the British transfer record but at the same time he seemed always slightly to regret having paid so much for Francis and was determined he shouldn’t get above himself – not that that ever really seemed especially likely for somebody so resolutely down‑to‑earth. Clough gave Francis his Forest debut playing for the A-team on a park pitch in front of 40 fans and at half-time made him go and find a pair of shinpads, telling him he’d paid a lot for his legs and didn’t want them damaged. He’d already berated Francis for bringing his own soap and towel to training, rather than using those provided by the club.
Francis was cup-tied in the League Cup and ineligible until the semi-final of the European Cup, so for those games Clough made him brew the tea. Clough was concerned that Francis, having been showered with praise since the age of 16, having, as he saw it, never had to graft for his career, might lack the necessary hunger, so he would goad him, asking to see his medals. One arrived soon enough, Francis scoring the winner against Malmö in the European Cup final.
That goal at the Olympiastadion, the run to the back post to meet John Robertson’s cross – the two elements of Clough’s coaching combining: the rough diamond and the glamorous signing – the plunging header and the roll across the discus circle, turned out to be as good as it got. Francis, to Clough’s fury, honoured a pre‑existing commitment to the Detroit Express in the NASL. He returned with a groin injury, at which point Clough refused to play him until the union stepped in.
Clough, at his worst, could be petty and childish, and Francis often bore the brunt. On one occasion, during a European tie against Östers, Clough sent him to use a public toilet rather than admit him to the dressing room while he was speaking. On another, coming back from a cup tie at Ipswich, Francis had arranged for his car to be left in a lay-by en route to Nottingham. The car was not there but Clough put him off the bus as arranged, effectively leaving him stranded.
Clough blamed Francis for defeat by Wolves in the 1980 League Cup final, sparking a row in which Francis demanded to be played at centre‑forward rather than on the right where Clough had taken to fielding him. As he excelled through the middle in the away leg of the European Cup quarter‑final against BFC Dynamo and then in the semi-final against Ajax, a more positive future began to seem possible but at the beginning of May he snapped an achilles against Crystal Palace. He was never quite the same again.
Francis eventually left Forest early in 1981-82, joining Manchester City for £1.2m but he had become a player who struggled constantly with injury and the following summer, in which he scored winners against Czechoslovakia and Kuwait at the World Cup, he was sold to Sampdoria. Only twice more did he manage more than 20 league games in a season.
There was a golden finale as he helped second-division Sheffield Wednesday to promotion and victory against Manchester United in the 1991 League Cup final; then, as player-manager, led them to third place in the top flight the following season. There was a time when he seemed a possible future England manager, and he led Birmingham City to the playoffs and a League Cup final but, after a couple of seasons at Crystal Palace, his career ended in 2003. He was still only 49.
There is a goal Francis scored against QPR for Birmingham in 1976, cutting in from the left, creating an angle as he beat two defenders before burying his shot at the near post, that showcases him at his best: technically gifted, spatially aware, explosive and imaginative. He was a player capable of doing things nobody else seemed to do. It’s the curse of those who emerge early to live always in the shadow of an impossible trajectory of development and Francis’s reputation suffered from that as much as from Clough’s constant nagging.
But players should be judged on what they did, rather than on their failure to achieve what was imagined for them. Francis was a very fine player and for all that injuries ruined the second half of his career, he’ll always have that header in Munich. Clough may not have trusted him, but it was Francis who put the seal on the Clough legend.
• This article was amended on 26 July 2023. Ron Atkinson managed Sheffield Wednesday to promotion to the first division in the 1990-91 season, not Trevor Francis as an earlier version said. Francis was player-manager when they achieved third place the following season.
