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Son of former Brentford player Roy Francis.
Joined QPR as an apprentice in 1968.
League debut at the age of 16 against Liverpool in 1969 and spent the majority of his career at Loftus Road, where he took over as club captain in September 1974 (when Terry Venables left), until he left in 1978 to move to South London with Crystal Palace. Only stayed a year at Selhurst Park before moving on to Coventry City, Exeter City, Cardiff City, Swansea City and Portsmouth. His final club was Bristol Rovers, where he took over as manager on a full-time basis, having been player manager at Exeter previously.
Won his first cap for England U23 v Denmark in November 1973 and went on to make 12 appearances in the senior England team, scoring three times and captaining them on eight occasions.
Resigned from QPR to join Spurs as their manager in 1994
When at Spurs, he twice turned down the chance to be England manager.
Resigned as manager of Spurs in November 1997.
Retired from management in February 2001, after he had another go at QPR for 10 years, before coming out of retirement, re-joining Bristol Rovers as manager, despite Brentford and Crystal Palace also being interested in his services. Was appointed as a coach to Tony Pulis at Stoke City in 2010, but left when the manager departed in June 2013.
Occasionally appears on Sky Sports news to give his view on football stories of the day, but appears content to be an "angel" (investor in West End stage shows), running an antiques shop and revert back to his love of pigeon-fancying.