The first million-pound player when he signed for Nottingham Forest in 1979 knows that fee is now viewed as small change.
by Paul Hayward - The Guardian
Thirty-two years ago this week Trevor Francis became Britain's first million-pound footballer. Francis was a striker, like Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll, but for him there was no chopper ride from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest and no adulatory welcome from Brian Clough, his new manager, who was allergic to superstardom.
"I signed on the Friday morning, during a spell when a lot of games were being called off. So on that Saturday, the following day, the Forest game was postponed and Cloughie decided I was short of match practice," Francis starts out. "So he played me in a parks game he had organised between the Forest and Notts County third teams. I'm drawing parallels now with Torres playing in front of 40,000 against Liverpool [today]. I played in front of 20 people and two dogs.
"I got my first bollocking off him, at half-time, for not wearing shin pads. You didn't have to wear them in those days. I felt more comfortable without them but Cloughie said: 'If you play for Nottingham Forest, you have to wear pads.' The following week I played for the first team and it suddenly dawned on me, at Portman Road, when the supporters sang 'What a waste of money' throughout the game. That's when I started to realise how daunting it was to live up to this pressure."