ONE KEVIN FRANCIS , THERE’S ONLY ONE KEVIN FRANCIS

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The fanzines have a field day : in Marlons Gloves, (Burnley) it is Lurch; The Memoirs of Seth Bottomley, (Vale), is always scathingly critical and at Rochdale I have heard him referred to as the Human Tree.   Ray Wilkins says he will call him when he needs some guttering done and the knowledgeable pundits see him and immediately class us as a long ball team. Every mention in the media is prefaced by the tag “the tallest player in the Football League”. There’s barely a recognition of the fact that in the three years he’s been at Edgeley we’ve seen promotion, visited Wembley 3 times and been in the play offs twice with his contribution to these achievements being nothing less than gargantuan. There’s a hatful of memories as we watched his progress from what looked to be complete misfit in his first few games to a regular match winner who has just run a Premiership defence completely ragged. As I write it’s only a few days ago but his performance against QPR will undoubtedly live long in the memory.  In my opinion Kevin’s display that afternoon was the finest individual performance I have seen from a County player in the 30 years I have been coming to EP. He came out obviously determined to show he could play at the highest level and thus make the critics eat their words. He ended up giving them a 5 course dinner complete with doggy bag to take home.

Goal scorers are a coveted asset and when anyone comes to national attention by goal scoring regularly there’s always gossip in the media as to where he might be going and for how much. In these circumstances club chairmen are notoriously prone to over exaggeration when valuations are mentioned. General reaction to Brendan’s assessment of Kevin’s worth, (£2m), was one of disbelief amongst my work colleagues who believe the football world begins and ends with the Premiership, and would constrain it to Old Trafford were it possible to have a one club League. These comments of course came from the supporters of a club which paid £1m for Dion Dublin who isn’t even half the player.

With 19 goals so far this season at the time of writing it’s odds on that Kevin will match last season’s tally of 39 and  this will undoubtedly lead to speculation about a move to a big club. We wouldn’t want that to happen, but given his own ambitions, and the financial constraints of managing a club with average gates of around 5,000, a parting of the ways may be inevitable. If it is then it is crucial that we receive an appropriate fee. The days of underselling players in order to maintain cash flow, (Quinn, Emerson etc),  must by now have disappeared giving the commercial activities at County –  but is the chairman’s £2m reasonable?

Let’s look at the facts. Up the date of writing Kevin had:

Played 146 games plus four as sub scored 88 goals in average of 0.59 goals per game. Measure this against the generally accepted standard of a prolific scorer of 0.5 per game

Played against 52 clubs and scored against 37 of them, and of the remainder he had only played one game against eleven. Only against Brighton as he played three games without scoring by the time of publication this may have been rectified

Scored regularly both home and away –  50 goals in 77 (+2) home matches and 36 in 66 (+2) away – respective goals per game averages of 0.64 and 0.54. For good measure there were also two goals in three Wembley appearances

Scored 61 in 112 (+4) League and play off appearances at an average of 0.54 per game

Particularly enjoyed Cup competitions with 27 goals in 34 games – an average of 0.79

Averaged a goal again against Premiership opposition

Hasn’t boosted his total nearly by scoring against weaker position in 12 matches against six promotion winning teams in the last two years he scored 8.

A more than impressive record. As Premiership clubs seek to find the answer to their goal scoring problems they try and discover it at cut price in the lower divisions. To place Kevin in this context the reference books provide some interesting comparisons. The following players were all acquired from the lower reaches, and their scoring record at their former clubs according to Rothmans 92/93 is as follows:

Taken in this context Mr Elwood’s valuation is not untoward. We must have the most valuable player outside Premiership. I, and presumably 5,000 others, don’t want to see Kevin move on. However he has earned the right to play at the highest level – hopefully it will will be with County but if the evil day comes and the lure of a hefty transfer fee is too much to ignore then the club must insist on a fee commensurate with his value and £2m has got to be the bottom line. Anything less will not only be bad business but also a betrayal of what has been achieved at EP over the last three years.

January 1994