Now then,

It’s been a while.

In the world of Nottingham Forest, we’re all a bit stressed. Transfers, or lack of them, have become all we think or talk about. At the same time, I have been raising my eyebrows at the goings on at Manchester City. I read that at one stage, they had ninety six million pounds of worth of players sitting on the substitutes bench. The inflationary costs of buying new players are spiralling out of control and becoming a threat to the future of the game.

But you see, we started it.

Lots of things in football started at Nottingham Forest. The first million pound player was our own. Except he wasn’t the first, and before tax, he didn’t cost a million.

Bill Shankly once said: “It is possible to manufacture one or two players by coaching and by help, but the likes of Trevor Francis are born. A pianist is born.”

Francis was born in Plymouth and signed for Birmingham City aged 15. In the 1970 season, aged sixteen, Francis scored 15 goals in his first 15 games. In February that year, the young apprentice, earning £8 a week, scored all four goals in city’s 4-0 defeat of Bolton Wanderers. Crowds at St Andrews rose from twelve thousand to fifty thousand, all straining to see what became known as ‘The Francis Magic’. Once during that month BBC sports report opened with the headline that: “Trevor Francis did not score today.”

He was two months away from his 17th birthday.

Birmingham gained promotion to the First Division the following season. When Francis tore a tendon behind his knee in 1974, City were five points off the top of the table behind Leeds. When he returned to the side six months later, they were in a relegation battle.

He formed a strange striking partnership with Kenny Burns. Burns was a wild card at Birmingham who needed discipline, but was given free rein. At times, he and Francis would create goals together then celebrate alone, refusing to speak to each other. In the late 1970s, Francis became increasingly unhappy at the lack of creativity in the Birmingham side and put in several transfer requests. He wrote articles for newspapers – he is a sensitive and intelligent man – voicing his dissatisfaction with the team and was fined for doing so. Sir Alf Ramsey, the manager of England’s victorious 1966 World Cup-winning team was manager of Birmingham at the time. When Ramsey resigned from Birmingham, he stated that the reason was that Francis had spoken out against the club and had been fined less than the player earned in a week.

The next Birmingham Manager, Jim Smith allowed Francis to spend his summers playing for Detroit in the North American Soccer League. It was a compromise to keep Francis at the club. Francis was chosen for the NASL All-star teams of both 1978 and 1979, taking his place alongside George Best and Johann Cruyff. The difference was that Francis was a young player almost at the pinnacle of his career. In the USA, Francis was given superstar status. It was the Match Of The Day presenter Jimmy Hill who arranged for Francis to regularly fly on Concorde to play in Detroit.

Francis played in America all through the British close season. In 1978 he was paid £75,000 for playing 19 games in America.

In 1977 Francis had been presented with ATV’s (now called Central) Player of the Year award by the outspoken manager of Nottingham Forest, Brian Clough. Clough told Francis that he wished he’d managed him when Francis was 18. He also said before presenting the trophy: “Take your hands out of your pockets young man.” Francis said: “I don’t think that remarks like that are called for on live television.”

It was Peter Taylor that did it. Francis was all set to sign for Coventry before Taylor stepped in and told him that he’d win medals at Forest. Taylor paid £999,999 for Francis. Clough had said he wouldn’t pay a million for a player. After tax it was £1,150,000. It doubled the previous highest transfer fee paid in Britain. The transfers of two players in Italy, one of whom was Paulo Rossi, had already broken the million pound barrier. Taylor phoned Clough afterwards to tell him what he had done.

Francis made his début for Forest in the A team – the third team – the next day against Notts County in a Nottingham park. He wasn’t even registered as a Forest player at the time. It was a deliberate attempt by Clough to humble his first million pound player. Francis had a shot at goal that went wide and one of the twenty odd spectators that had turned up shouted: “You’ve got to do better than that Francis.” Clough ran half of the length of the pitch to tell the spectator: “Trevor is his name.”

Why is it that whenever I write about players from the Clough era, I end up writing about Clough? The man mesmerises me every time.

In his first season at Forest, Francis was ineligible for the League and FA Cup and the next two rounds of European Cup football. Clough made him pour the tea at half time and collect the players’ shirts after the games.

At first, the pressure of being what the press called ‘the million pound man’ told on Francis’ performances for the Reds. All that changed on May 30th 1979. The European cup final against Malmo in Munich.

It’s a moment that changed our world. Now this is embarrassing. I am sitting remembering a goal scored by a football player and I’m thinking about the fact that this is Forest, my Forest. The team that have frustrated, entertained and despaired me for all of the thirty years in between. And I’m suddenly crying real tears at the memory of it.

“Not as good a goal as people made it out to be,” said Francis. It was shown at the start of Match of the Day thirty six times. “I’d have been disappointed if I’d missed.”

Watch it in slow motion. Remember it like Kennedy being shot or the first plane hitting the World Trade Centre. If you are a Forest fan, this is a defining moment in your life. Robbo down the left, the cross is perfect. Trevor Francis heads the ball. It goes over the line. It is a goal. Forest have scored. In a game where the entire Forest team seemed to freeze, Francis won the game for Forest. Nottingham Forest have won the European cup.

Clough joked: “He looked well worth two hundred thousand pounds.”

To make sure he’d sign for Forest and not Coventry, it had been agreed Francis could have one more summer in America. Francis had a successful summer in Detroit then arrived back at the City Ground with a groin strain. The media went into a frenzy, claiming Clough refused to pay Francis wages until he was fit and reporting that there was a ‘feud’. In fact, Clough phoned Francis at home and said: “I’ve spent eight bloody years chasing you, you’ll not be leaving Nottingham Forest while I’m manager here.” I can hear him saying that in his own voice.

Clough sent the injured Francis to collect Forest’s ‘European Team of the Year’ Award at the France Football Adidas awards. Afterwards, Helen Francis received a bouquet of flowers with a card that said: “Thanks for the loan of your husband for two days to stand in for me.”

The press said that Clough ruled by fear. Francis said: “This talk of fear is completely wrong. There’s so much flair produced by the team, it would never come out if players were afraid to express themselves. The only thing we are afraid of is giving less than one hundred percent.”

Francis scored his first hat-trick for Forest against Manchester City in 1980. He single-handedly rescued Forest’s European Cup campaign against Dynamo Berlin in the same year. Injuries meant that Francis never fully lived up to his price tag. He was injured for the 1980 European Cup Final and 18-year-old Gary Mills deputised for him. He drifted in and out of the side scoring just twenty goals in the two seasons before Clough sold him to Manchester City in 1982, making a profit on the player of over a hundred thousand pounds.

Is this the lot of every Forest fan? Remaining forever in mourning for a team that was allowed to die too soon. Watching ‘career’ managers with no real commitment to the club spend millions on lacklustre players with little commitment to the game?

We are now, what we always were at Forest, a provincial Second Division side. But due to genius and good luck, not once but twice, we were one of the greatest sides that has ever played football. Trevor was a part of that.

Thanks Trev.

I’ll see thee.