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		</div><p>Trevor Francis, British football’s first £1million player, has died at the age of 69.</p>
<p>The ex-Birmingham striker, who scored Nottingham Forest’s winner in their 1979 European Cup final triumph, earned 52 England caps and later guided Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham to major finals as a manager.</p>
<p>Plymouth-born Francis burst onto the scene as a teenager with Birmingham, making his first-team debut at 16 in 1970.</p>
<p>“He died in Spain this morning from a heart attack,” said a spokesman.</p>
<p>Forest shattered the British transfer record when they paid £1.15 million for him in 1979, although manager Brian Clough famously claimed the fee was £999,999 to take pressure off the player.</p>
<p>He started his career at Birmingham, playing 328 times and scoring 133 goals.</p>
<p>In 1971, at just 16-years-old, he became the youngest ever player to score four times in Football League history in Blues’ 4-0 win over Bolton.</p>
<p>He earned his record move to Forest in 1979 and headed the winner in the 1-0 victory over Malmo to win the European Cup just a few months later.</p>
<p>Francis missed the European Cup win over Hamburg a year later through injury and joined Manchester City in 1981.</p>
<p>Spells at Sampdoria, where he won the Coppa Italia, Atalanta, Rangers and QPR – where he was player-manager – followed.</p>
<p>He moved to Sheffield Wednesday in 1990 before he replaced Ron Atkinson as manager.</p>
<p>Under Francis, the Owls finished third in the old First Division in his first season in charge before finishing seventh in the newly created Premier League while also being runners-up in the FA Cup and League Cup.</p>
<p>He left in 1995 and returned to Birmingham the following year, reaching the play-offs three times and also the 2001 League Cup final where they lost to Liverpool.</p>
<p>Francis left St Andrew’s in October 2001 and joined Crystal Palace soon after, leaving the Eagles in 2003 in what was his last job.</p>
<p>Francis spent half a year in Spain and the rest in Solihull. He suffered a heart attack 11 years ago and had kept himself fit with daily power walks.</p>
<p>He had an annual health check through the League Managers’ Association and, according to his spokesman, was “enjoying life very much having eventually got over the death of his wife”.</p>
<p>Helen passed away in 2017 after a battle with cancer.</p>
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