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Football transfer, a deal that can make or break a player, manager and even the whole club. Some deals are always remembered for a reason be it right or wrong, while some deals are remembered for being a milestone. Most recently Paul Pogba's transfer from Juventus to Manchester United has been the most talked transfer mostly because of the world record £89 million United paid to acquire the services of the star Frenchman.
These days it's normal to see a player move for a price of £20-30 million but there was a time when just £1 million transfer fees shook a lot of people in England.
It was the year 1979, Liverpool and Nottingham Forest were the two dominant forces in English football. Forest had just won the English First Division and Liverpool had won the 1978 European Cup, defeating Club Brugge in the final. The then Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough wanted to add some spark in his Forest side to compete with Bob Paisley's Liverpool.
But for that, he had to pay an amount never ever seen in the English game!
In January 1979, Middlesbrough forward David Mills moved to West Bromwich Albion for a British record £516,000. To get a player much better, Clough had to pay an amount way higher than that.
Brian Clough had an eye on a 24-year-old forward Trevor Francis, who was playing for Birmingham City. Francis had scored 119 goals in 280 league matches for the West Midlands side.
In order to acquire the services of the English forward, Nottingham Forest had to pay a sum of £1 million, a seven digit amount which was never paid in British transfer history.
Rumours started to fly all over the place and on 9th February 1979 that a fee was agreed and Trevor Francis joined Nottingham Forest for a staggering £1 million. Brian Clough introduced his latest player to the media in his gym kit, carrying a squash racquet to the press conference!
And just like that Trevor Francis became the most expensive British footballer at that time.
Brian Clough always said that the fee paid to Birmingham City was a pound short of £1 million at £999,999 to ensure that a million pound milestone doesn't get into the head of a young Francis. But the truth was that taxes and commission took the deal well over a million pounds. The actual fee paid to Birmingham City was £1,180,000 which included a 15% commission to the Football League.
Trevor Francis was labelled as a waste of money in England but Clough wanted his player to not take any undue pressure. That time, Forest had already retained the League Cup and were on a great run in the European Cup. They defeated FC Koln in the semifinals and would face Swedish side Malmo FF in the final.
The time for Trevor Francis to shine had come.
He was not permitted to play until the final but in the crunch match in Munich, he repaid his huge transfer fee, with interest. In the first half, winger John Robertson swung the ball into the box from left flank and Trevor Francis connected with his head to open the scoring.
That would turn out to be the only goal of the game, handing Nottingham Forest their first European Cup.
The year after that, Forest would go on and retain the European Cup, this time defeating Hamburg in the final in Madrid. Francis was ruled out of this final due to an injury but his name was already etched into the football folklore due to his transfer fees.
Trevor Francis spent two seasons in Nottingham, scoring 28 goals in 81 league matches. After that he moved to Manchester City in 1981 and later played for the likes of Sampdoria in Serie A and QPR, Sheffield Wednesday in England.
He earned 52 caps for England in which he scored 12 goals.
However, it only took seven months to break the transfer record as in September of 1979, Manchester City paid Wolverhampton Wanderers £1,450,000 to sign Steve Daley, reducing the burden on the shoulders of Francis.
Technically, the deal was not a world record. Two Italian strikers Giuseppe Savoldi and Paolo Rossi had already cleared the £1 million transfer fee but Serie A was not so well known then in Britain, as it is today.
So be it Steve Daley's £1.45 million fees or Paul Pogba's £89 million fees, Trevor Francis will always be considered a pioneer in the world of football transfers.
That £1 million fees will always be in the league of its own!
