Francis Lee RIP

Although Franny left the club in acrimonious circumstances and went to play for Derby , City was his club , he came back on his white charger to save the club as chairman but he employed Alan Ball and that cocked that up.
His heart was in the right place as for as City is concerned and he will be remembered as a true legend of the club , hopefully there will be a Bell,Lee,Summerbee statue outside the ground one day , it would be a fitting tribute to the 67/68 team.
Was lucky enough to watch the team from 1966 onwards and Franny Lee was one of those players worth the admission price on his own , i so looked forward to match days as a young lad in the late 60's & early 70's we had a brilliant football team
Hope we can all give Franny a send off befitting not just a great player but a great man , no doubt Manchester cathedral with be rammed and the home game against Brighton our opportunity to pay homage to Franny , condolensces to his friends and family , R-I-P to a true blue icon.
 
cleavers said:
He might have "put his money where his mouth was", but I'm afraid it was under his tenure that we sank to our lowest point, and he left shortly before our relegation to the third tier. He also sold his remaing shares to Thaksin, and we were close to being in another hole there as well.

He was a great football player, but his time running City wasn't great, appointing first Ball, Coppell, then Clark as managers, who between them oversaw some of the worst teams we've ever had. He did apoint Joe Royle, who eventually got some control, and started our revival.

I've no nostalgia for his time as chairman (other than it saw Swales off), just as a player.
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Royle’s appointment was wholly down to Makin and Wardle - who knew him from his time at Oldham when JD Sports were sponsors. In fact they wanted Royle three months before Lee gave in to their demands….(and resigned) Wardle thought if we’d got Joe 3 months earlier we may have avoided relegation.
 
After Alan Ball Ithink he was a bit unlucky with his managers . Coppell might have worked but he just conked out, leaving Phil Neal if memory serves. Then as I remember the final nail was there was a ban on approaching managers still in work (typical anti city rule?) so he had to get one twiddling his thumbs and Frank Clark was the only senior one around. So tracing it all back I would say Coppell effectively sank him as Chairman.
 
Norman kneejerk said:
After Alan Ball Ithink he was a bit unlucky with his managers . Coppell might have worked but he just conked out, leaving Phil Neal if memory serves. Then as I remember the final nail was there was a ban on approaching managers still in work (typical anti city rule?) so he had to get one twiddling his thumbs and Frank Clark was the only senior one around. So tracing it all back I would say Coppell effectively sank him as Chairman.
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I was chuffed with both coppell and clarke. Both had done very well at palace and forest respectively.
Clarke had taken forest to third place and europe.

I always think the one that got away from us at that time was dave bassett. And yeah frannys start wasnt great hiring alan ball. Specially seen as though we thought we were getting beckenbaur
 
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