Trevor Francis was a footballer best known not for scoring in a European Cup final, earning 52 England appearances or later managing in major finals – all notable achievements – but for one of the game’s historical landmarks, as British football’s first million-pound player.
In these days of £100m-plus fees, few bat an eyelid at modest seven-figure moves but in 1979, when Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest smashed the British transfer record to sign Francis from Birmingham City, the sum caused quite a stir.
