![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/francis-may-have-been-uks-first-1m-man-but-clough-knew-how-to-ground-him/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/OFF-PLATFORM-francis-clough.jpg&description=Comment TREVOR-LUTIONARY Published : 22:30, 24 Jul 2023 TREVOR FRANCIS was never likely to get carried away with becoming Britain's first £1million footballer — not when the man who signed him was Brian Clough. The year before Francis made his historic switch from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest in February 1979, his future manager presented him with the Midlands Football Writers' Player of the Year award. 4 Brian Clough, right, signed Trevor Francis, left, back in 1979 Credit: PA:Press Association 4 Francis won the European Cup with Nottingham Forest in his first year at the club Credit: Getty And Clough scolded him with the words: "You are a very talented young man, now if you kindly take your hands out of your pockets I will present you with this trophy." Francis, who has died aged 69 , was a modest softly-spoken Devonian who always wore his fame lightly. Yet Old Big 'Ead wasn't going to take any chances, turning up for the player's official signing armed with a squash racquet, as if the deal was a minor inconvenience to delay his regular morning exercise. Asked what advice he would give to his new recruit, Cloughie replied: "Give the ball to John Robertson, he's better than you." Three months later, Francis would score the only goal in the first of Forest's back-to-back European Cup final wins, a stooping back-post header against Malmo in Munich following some classic Robertson wing-play. Francis enjoyed a long and prolific career — from teenage sensation at Birmingham to a League Cup winner as a veteran at Sheffield Wednesday. He became Birmingham's youngest first-team player when he debuted against Cardiff, aged 16 years and 139 days in 1970 — a record which stood for half a century, until Jude Bellingham made his Blues bow. It is testament to Francis that he played under Sir Alf Ramsey and also in the Premier League , winning trophies in three different decades before he became a distinguished manager and TV co-commentator. 4 Francis scored the winning g){kind=link}
TREVOR FRANCIS was never likely to get carried away with becoming Britain’s first £1million footballer – not when the man who signed him was Brian Clough.
The year before Francis made his historic switch from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest in February 1979, his future manager presented him with the Midlands Football Writers’ Player of the Year award.
And Clough scolded him with the words: “You are a very talented young man, now if you kindly take your hands out of your pockets I will present you with this trophy.”
Francis, who has died aged 69, was a modest softly-spoken Devonian who always wore his fame lightly.
Yet Old Big ‘Ead wasn’t going to take any chances, turning up for the player’s official signing armed with a squash racquet, as if the deal was a minor inconvenience to delay his regular morning exercise.