TOON TOLD BY FANS: NO FURLOUGHS
ever do it again’ – and I didn’t! Apart from that, the one thing I remember was that, from minute one to the last minute, the fans seemed to be chanting ‘What a waste of money.’ It was just constant.”
But the England man didn’t have to wait too long before the bar was raised even higher – midfielder Steve Daley moving from
Wolves to Manchester City for £1.4m. Francis added: “I’ve never been happier with a transfer than that one! It took a lot of pressure off me.
“It was hard at first and I did feel that extra pressure, but I settled into it and ended up scoring the most important goal in the history of the club (against Malmo in the European Cup final), so I’d like to think I justified the manager’s faith in me.”
Aston Villa kicked off the big-money transfers with their £100 cheque to land Willie Groves from West Bromwich Albion.
1904 Alf Common (left) moved from Sunderland to Middlesbrough for £1,000 and sparked a national outrage.
Arsenal bought David Jack from Bolton Wanderers for £10,890.
John Charles’ move from Leeds to Juventus shattered the transfer record at £65,000.
Denis Law (right) joined Manchester
United from Torino for
£115,000.
Martin Peters joined Tottenham from West Ham for
£200,000.
Kevin Keegan
(far right) went from
Liverpool to Hamburg for
£500,000.
1979 Trevor
Francis became the first
£1million player with his switch from Birmingham to Nottingham Forest. Alan Shearer (above) moved from Blackburn to Newcastle for £15m. Gareth Bale (below) switched from Tottenham to Real Madrid for £86m.
NEWCASTLE are under growing pressure from fans to reverse their decision to take taxpayers’ cash to fund staff wages.
Spurs have also been urged to do likewise by the influential Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust.
But Toon owner Mike Ashley (right) and the club are understood to be sticking to the plan to put non-playing staff on furlough so the Government pays 80 per cent of their wages up to £2,500.
Liverpool have already performed a U-turn and apologised for their decision to use the Job Retention Scheme.
And Sunderland have become the latest League One club to put all players and staff on furlough, but said “the club remains fully committed to ensuring all employees are paid in full”.