Trevor Francis RIP

spacecadet said:
Remember that rare win at that shithole. Had to watch Asa's disallowed goal three times to check my eyes weren't deceiving me. Hartford is in front of the scouse **** centre half. We have been being fucking cheated at the dump for decades.
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also did Thompson get sent off for that handball or did they just sub him
 
petrusha said:
I remember that a building society opened a branch on Wilbraham Road in Chorlton in November 1981 and commemorated the occasion by having Trevor Francis make a personal appearance. Anyone who opened an account got a free photo taken with him, and I saved my dinner money for the day so that I could take advantage of the offer. He was extremely gracious to a nervous kid, so I always thought favourably of his character after that.

He was a truly wonderful player, too. We had some other fairly big names at the time, but the team really was markedly far worse during the third of our fixtures that Trevor missed through injury (plus one suspension after he was sent off at home to Everton). It disgusts me now as much as it did at the time that the utter **** Swales used Trevor Francis to advertise season tickets on Piccadilly Radio only to flog him off for a laughably cheap fee as soon as they stopped being on sale.

Francis's departure signalled the start of City ceasing to act like a proper big club, a stated of affairs that persisted for a distressingly long time. Still, even his spell with us didn't last long, it was a privilege to watch him in that season he spent with us. He was an absolute thoroughbred of a footballer and showed it pretty well whenever he took the field.
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Great summary. I thought he always seemed to have time on the ball and made difficult things look very easy. Jaw droppingly brilliant at times. As for his sale and the bungled replacements that really was the last roll of the dice for city that decade and maybe into the 90s.
I always wondered how we could sign someone no doubt helped by the cup finals in 81 but in less than a year decide we couldn't afford his wages, did we not have budgets, cash forecasts etc. Sadly got Swales haul mark all over it.
 
I do remember that game against Wolves in Christmas 81 and his performance that day to send us top of the league, great player and somebody to build the team around but as usual Wiggy screwed up. RIP Trevor.
 
Was at Stoke for his debut. Best debut ever, two great goals, great player. RIP Trevor
 
Great player in his day, and seemed a decent guy too.

Quite a distinguished career as well, think I am right in remembering him score in the 1982 world cup?

RIP TF.
 
We should've sold the roof, kept Trevor and built a team around him.

The ineptitude of Swales,his lackies and Bernard set the club back 35 years.

Re appointing Malcolm,selling the core of Skips team etc etc.

We had a real opportunity to create sustainable success in 1972 and 1977 and fucked it up through incompetence,vanity and the devastating injury to Colin Bell.

Treasurer the present cos success is a fickle madam !!
 
I was in Italy when a copy of Gazzetta Dello Sport caught my eye in a bar and was trying to make sense of what it was saying, the bar owner kindly translated "Francis to Italy" I thought wtf has Swales done now, hope was snatched away and I felt even more bitter towards Swales and his ego!
 
BlueMoonRisin’ said:
For those who aren't old enough to know, when Trevor Francis signed for us he put at least an extra 5000 on the attendance. Such an exciting player but injury prone. RIP
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That is a total urban myth, I'm afraid. The Maine Road gates when Francis played were mostly in the range 30,000 to 33,000. That was very much in line with the matches the season before and was actually less than matches which he did not play.
 
Gone for a Burton said:
We should've sold the roof, kept Trevor and built a team around him.

The ineptitude of Swales,his lackies and Bernard set the club back 35 years.

Re appointing Malcolm,selling the core of Skips team etc etc.

We had a real opportunity to create sustainable success in 1972 and 1977 and fucked it up through incompetence,vanity and the devastating injury to Colin Bell.

Treasurer the present cos success is a fickle madam !!
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We were on the verge of making it a big 3 of clubs and blew it, until...
 
Gone for a Burton said:
.... Re appointing Malcolm,selling the core of Skips team etc etc.....
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That set us back God knows how many years. We finished one point behind the all conquering Liverpool team in the 76/77 season. And that was without the King (if he'd played that season, we'd have strolled the league). 18 months or so later, Allison was re-appointed. And tore that team apart. There is an argument to be had that we never truly recovered until the 2010/11 season.
 
jimharri said:
That set us back God knows how many years. We finished one point behind the all conquering Liverpool team in the 76/77 season. And that was without the King (if he'd played that season, we'd have strolled the league). 18 months or so later, Allison was re-appointed. And tore that team apart. There is an argument to be had that we never truly recovered until the 2010/11 season.
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100%.
 
Sad news. Like many others my first away game was Trevor’s debut. I interviewed him a few years back and have posted it today as a tribute:

gjfootballarchive.com

Trevor Francis

I was saddened to hear the news of Trevor Francis’ death this afternoon. My thoughts are with his family and friends. I interviewed Trevor 13 years ago for a MCFC match programme article and …
gjfootballarchive.com gjfootballarchive.com
 
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