9 February 1979: Britain’s first £1m footballer

British football's first £1m transfer took place on this day in 1979 when Trevor Francis moved from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest.

In the good old days, football was played by toffs with big moustaches, who called it “soccer” to differentiate it from “rugger”. Then the oiks got involved, and they wanted paying. And with professionalism came transfer fees.

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Ben Judge

Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin. 

As an early adopter of bitcoin, Ben bought when the price was under $200, but went on to spend it all on foolish fripperies.