Trevor Francis

Born: 19th April 1954, Plymouth
Position: Forward.
Height: 5ft 10in.
Weight: 11st 7lb.

Playing Career

Birmingham City: June 1969.
Detroit Express: May-August 1978 & June-August 1979.
Nottingham Forest: February 1979 (£ 1.1m - Britain’ s first million pound player).
Manchester City: September 1981 (£ 1m).
Sampdoria: July 1982 (£ 700,000).
Atalanta: July 1986 (£ 800,000).
Glasgow Rangers: August 1987 (£ 75,000).
Queen’ s Park Rangers: March 1988.
Sheffield Wednesday: January 1990.

Managerial Career

Player-Manager: Queen’ s Park Rangers - December 1988-November 1989.
Player-Manager: Sheffield Wednesday - June 1991-May 1995.

Honours

England International: 52 caps.
Under-23 International: 5 caps.
England Youth International
Football League Cup Runners-Up: 1980
Scottish League Cup Winners: 1988
Italian Cup Winners: 1985
European Cup Winners: 1979
FA Cup Runners-Up: 1993
League Cup Runners-Up: 1993

Trevor Francis was one of the best players of his generation who enjoyed a long and successful playing career. He was a striker with acceleration and style who was always very dangerous around the penalty area. He was the first 16-year-old to score four goals in a League match, at Bolton in February 1971, and later became Britain’ s first £ 1 million player when moving to Nottingham Forest in 1979. He also had a great record when playing for Detroit Express, where he scored 36 goals in 33 matches. He had previously scored 128 goals for Birmingham before his move to Forest.

At Forest, Francis scored the winning goal in the 1979 European Cup victory over Malmö and gained another winners’ medal the following year. Surprisingly he was 23 before winning his first cap and after moving to Italy he enjoyed much success before returning to Britain to play for Rangers.

Francis management career started with Queen’ s Park Rangers where he had an unhappy spell as player-manager. They struggled in the First Division during his time in charge and he tried to be a disciplinarian but the players failed to respond. There was much bad press after he fined a player for attending the birth of his first child rather than appear for the first team. It was an error of judgment on Francis’ part and he was sacked shortly afterwards.

Ron Atkinson brought Francis to Wednesday as a player in the season they were relegated to the Second Division. He played a key role in the 1990-91 promotion season and helped the club reach the League Cup Final, although he was a non-playing substitute on the day. With the departure of Ron Atkinson to Aston Villa, Francis took over as player-manager but his appearances in the first team were now becoming rare. Wednesday had an excellent first season 1991-92 under Francis, finishing third in the First Division.

Francis’ managerial career seemed to be on the up in 1992-93 with the Owls reaching two domestic Cup Finals and finishing in a respectable league position. There was great disappointment at the two defeats, especially the FA Cup final replay with Arsenal’ s winner coming in the very last minute of extra time.

With the income generated from the two Cup runs, Francis invested heavily in the transfer market but after the two great Cup runs in 1993, Wednesday’ s form was inconsistent and he suffered from a series of injuries to key players. Doubts about his man-management ability again crept in after reports of dressing room bust ups and he was sacked, ironically on Cup Final day, two years after Wednesday’ s double appearance.

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Stuart Jackson