"He was also later the chairman and main shareholder of Manchester City, as well as briefly a racehorse trainer and amateur cricket player.
A striker, he played for Bolton Wanderers, Manchester City, Derby County and the England national team. Noted for his speed and determination, he scored more than 200 goals in his career, in which he won League Championship medals with Manchester City and Derby. In 2010, he was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame.
Lee holds the English record for the greatest number of penalties scored in a season, a feat that earned him the nickname Lee 1 (Pen) because that was the way his name often seemed to appear on the list of goal scorers for City in the match results listings in the Sunday papers. This led to accusations of diving. One such accusation, by Leeds United's Norman Hunter, led to an on-pitch fight.
In 1966, Lee founded F. H. Lee Ltd, a firm that recycled paper to manufacture products such as kitchen roll and toilet paper.[6] It operated until 2003 and made him a millionaire. In 1994, Lee became the major shareholder and chairman of Manchester City, but stepped down four years later."
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This statue was erected in November 2023 and consists of the trio of players Bell–Lee–Summerbee. It is situated outside the Colin Bell stand of Manchester City Football Club.
After the successful period that Manchester City enjoyed whilst Bell, Lee and Summerbee were playing the club declined and were relegated to the third tier of the Football League.
Manchester City's decline ended after financial investment in 2008 by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan through the Abu Dhabi United Group. Then in 2016 Pep Guardiola, former head coach of Barcelona and Bayern Munich, was confirmed to become Manchester City's new manager on 1 February 2016.
Since he was appointed Manager the club has gone on to great success and become one of the most successful clubs in the Premier League.
This statue was erected to honour the success that Bell, Lee and Summerbee had brought to to the club in the time they played.
The statue depicts the three players in their football kit and in poses that show them in action.
When facing the statue, Francis Lee is the player in the middle, and each player has their name inscribed below them. The players are cast in bronze sculpted by David Williams-Ellis and stand on a stone plinth. They are 1.5 times life size. At the base of the bronze, at the top of the plinth the names of the remaining 29 players who played for the club are inscribed.
At the rear of the plinth is inscribed the honours that the trio helped to win for the club.
FIRST DIVISION 1967/68
FA CUP 1968/69
LEAGUE CUP 1969/70
EUROPEAN CUP WINNERS CUP 1969/70
Francis Lee sadly died just a few weeks before this statue was unveiled. His son said that "such a permanent tribute is everything he could have hoped for.”.
"Manchester City
Manchester City manager Joe Mercer signed him for a club record transfer fee of £60,000 in 1967. Mercer described the purchase of Lee for City as "the final piece of the puzzle". He made his Manchester City debut in a 2–0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers at Maine Road, and scored his first Manchester City goal the following week at Fulham. In his first season at the club, he scored 16 League goals in 31 appearances, playing a crucial role in City's push for the 1967–68 League Championship; Mercer described him as "the final piece of the jigsaw". The title was decided on the final day of the season, City requiring a win at Newcastle United. City won the match 4–3, Lee scoring one of the goals, and were crowned champions. The following season Lee was part of the Manchester City team that won the 1969 FA Cup.
In the 1969–70 season, Lee was Manchester City's top scorer, an achievement he would subsequently match in each of the next four seasons. His tally that season included one of the most important goals of his career, a penalty in the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup.
In the 1971–72 season, Lee set a British record for the number of penalties scored in a season, with 15 of his 35 goals scored from the penalty spot – seven of the penalties resulted from fouls on Lee, earning him the nickname Lee One Pen. Some journalists, holding the opinion that Lee gained a number of penalties by diving, used the name Lee Won Pen instead. Lee's name is often cited in debates about diving in football; referees' chief Keith Hackett described him as a player who "had a reputation of falling down easily".
Lee also held the record for the most goals in Manchester derbies, scoring ten goals in all against Manchester United, a tally that equalled Joe Hayes' record. This record was later beaten by Wayne Rooney who scored his 11th goal in the fixture on 22 September 2013."
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