Former soccer player Trevor Francis, winner of two European Cups with Nottingham Forest and international with the English team, has died in Spain at the age of 69 of a heart attack, his family reported Monday.
“This has been a huge ‘shock’ for everyone. We are very sad. He was a legendary footballer, but also an extremely good person,” his relatives said in a statement.
The English forward became the first player from the United Kingdom whose transfer, from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest in 1979, exceeded one million pounds (1.15 million euros at current exchange rates).
At Forest he was part of a legendary team that dominated European football at the end of the 1970s, winning two European Cups in the finals against Malmö (1979) -in which he scored the winning goal- and Hamburg (1980).
Likewise, he wore the shirt of the English team in 52 games, in which he scored 12 goals, and also played for Sampdoria and Atalanta in Italy. After his retirement, he launched a coaching career, managing Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham City, among others.
