Trevor Francis, the first England player to cross the 1 million mark, has passed away

Striker Trevor Francis, best known for being the first English player to be sold for more than a million pounds, died on Monday aged 69. He scored the winning goal for Nottingham Forest in the European Champions Club Cup in 1979.

Trevor Francis, the first England player to earn £1m in history, died on Monday aged 69 in Spain “of a heart attack”, a spokesman for his family announced.

In 1979 he moved to Nottingham Forest for £1.15 million, from Birmingham where he made his professional debut aged 16, becoming the first British footballer to transfer such a sum.

In a famous statement, Brian Clough, the Nottingham coach, initially announced a transfer worth £999,999 to take any pressure off his new striker. A few months later, Francis scored a 1–0 goal against Malmö with a winning header and gave Forest the first European Champions Clubs Cup (ancestor of the Champions League) in its history. The following year, Nottingham Forest completed the double against Hamburg, but the injured Trevor Francis missed the final.

He retired from football in 2003

During his 24-year career, Francis made 52 appearances for England, scoring twelve goals and featured in the 82 World Cup in Spain. In 1981, Francis was transferred to Manchester City and then moved to Italy, where he won the Italian Cup with Sampdoria. He then spent one season in Atlanta before returning to Great Britain, where he played for Glasgow Rangers and then London club Queens Park Rangers.

He ended his career as player-manager at Sheffield Wednesday, where he won the League Cup in 1991 and reached the final of both domestic cups in 1993, losing each time to Arsenal. He went on to coach at Birmingham and then Crystal Palace for a few years before retiring from football in 2003.

Francis Trevor split his life between Birmingham and Spain. He had already suffered a heart attack in 2012 and since then has benefited from annual medical monitoring. Birmingham City paid tribute to their former striker in a statement: “Trevor will forever be revered as a great player for this club, a player everyone wanted to see.”