David Foot Column – Football's lost its sentimental side

David Foot column: Let's get one thing, however reluctantly, out of the way – the sentimental side of football has gone for ever.

Unlike professional boxing, where the muscled practitioners do their best to render opponents unconscious before the battered pair leave the ring in a blood-brothers' embrace, football now has less and less time for emotional gestures.

Take the exit of Nigel Clough from Burton Albion after 11 years of loyalty and a constant, at times understated, affinity that has taken the Brewers' part-timers to the cusp of promotion to the Football League for the first time in their history.

Disappointment but no hard feelings when he decided to collect up his belongings from the modest office and head for Derby County, even though he was also taking his assistant and coach with him.

By contrast, and very much in the practical modern mode, were the seemingly cold murmurs from Roy McFarland, who had taken over as caretaker until the end of the season. He's a perceptive, no-nonsense hard nut, with more than 400 appearances as a tenacious defender for Derby. There's never been too much saccharine or pussy-footing in his public statements.

"You've got to forget all about Nigel Clough," he tells his new audience. "He's gone now." In other words, after more than a decade of managerial endeavour, Clough is simply part of club history. The Burton players should have other things on their minds as they move on, he implies. It's understandable, even if it leaves some of the loyal fans uneasy.

Ironically, Clough junior had appeared to be one of that receding balanced and sentimental breed still to be found within the game. He's less dramatic and volatile than his father used to be, less mindful of effect and headlines. During his days with Albion, he made sure he didn't miss the school run or the bonuses of family life.

Taking a more regional look, the League never had a more close-knit collection than Rovers. Many of the players used to live next door to each other. Some even painted their houses in blue and white. They and their families went to the flicks regularly together. They had the same east Bristol accent, the same dry sense of humour. They made up what was their own community, happily employed though no doubt poorly paid.

But those days of camaraderie have been overtaken by society's drastic changes. I noticed it at a recent home match at the Memorial Stadium. A vaguely familiar figure was moving towards a place in the stand. There were one or two double-takes and backward glances. "Hey, wasn't that old Josser Watling? A joker he was. And he played the piano." The other spectators weren't quite sure. They were too young in any case and didn't know enough about the unique way the Rovers of the Fifties once bonded on and off the field.

Football has become so much more impersonal. Foreign players have often enriched the game. Yet too frequently they, with their own cultures and language, break up the dressing room into inevitable factions. Coaches occasionally have difficulty making themselves understood on the training pitch.The valued corporate sense is diminished.

Such sub-divisions are more prevalent in the Premier League where, rather than in the lower levels, there are costly prima donna performers with gilded reputations who don't necessarily stay for long. So continuity is suspect. A sentimental or alien word like loyalty doesn't come into their remit. Their agents and aides are left to work out the practical ethics which often have more to do with personal fortunes than finer feelings.

The turnover of players is prodigious. We could all reel off hundreds of names of yesterday's men once our heroes and now relegated to the archives and our memories. As we were saying, Nigel Clough has gone and may soon be forgotten as Burton step gingerly into the League.

These soulless tendencies are to be regretted. Something has been lost in the brashly revamped game – and it won't ever be retrieved.