Leon Wobschall: Football worse off as we say goodbye to some of the game's good guys

It is football’s misfortune that while the new year may only be barely three weeks old, we have sadly lost several of that ilk already.

First, Cyrille Regis. An iron man in both stature and spirit who became a totemic figure for many in the late 70s. A blessed individual who showed his class on and off the pitch, more especially in dealing with the vile scourge of racism and providing a pathway for many aspiring black footballers to follow.

And now, another gentleman and esteemed footballing figure has departed in the shape of Jimmy Armfield. Another whose loss to the game is incalculable.

As news filtered through of Armfield’s sad passing yesterday morning, it was also revealed the former Barnsley owner Patrick Cryne, also gravely ill with cancer, had also departed.

The pain was searingly felt in his hometown of Barnsley especially as they mourned a man whose duty of care to his town and football club was worn as a badge of honour in his own quiet and unassuming way.

Cryne’s brave address to Reds supporters in his final set of programme notes back in the autumn struck a chord not just with those of a Barnsley persuasion, but countless other football fans and decent-minded individuals too.

Like Armfield, Cryne possessed old-school, proper values which sadly appear increasingly lost these days. During his time at the Oakwell helm, there was no desire to enter the limelight and make it all about him.

It was about his club and he was immensely proud to be its guardian.

Barnsley was ‘my heritage, my football club’ as he said in an interview with The Yorkshire Post a few years ago. Ever since he went to his first match with his uncle Ernest at the age of five, in fact.

Emotional bonds were brokered. And just as he revered other key figures in the Reds’ history such as club founder Tiverton Preedy and Wilf Batrop - who played for Barnsley in the 1912 FA Cup final, only to die tragically at the end of the First World War - so the respect for Cryne will forever endure in his town, now that he has gone.

The fellow loss of one-time Leeds United boss Armfield; not just an esteemed former footballer, but a manager, journalist and broadcaster of the highest order, made for a desperately sad day for Yorkshire football on Monday.

The passing of one-time Middlesbrough winger Billy Day, who wowed Ayresome Park crowds alongside Brian Clough and Alan Peacock in the 1950s, further added to the sense of foreboding, following on from the sad passing of former Rotherham United favourite Rod Fern last week.

Armfield was a man for all ages. Humble, hard-working, shrewd, self-effacing, knowledgeable, talented – in every facet of life. And fundamentally good.

It was his balm that soothed the wounds of the brief, but tumultuous Brian Clough era at Leeds United in subtle fashion. Not too many others would have possessed the requisite skill to do that, but Armfield did. And of course, it should have yielded a European Cup.

Gone, but never forgotten and his legacy will endure. As it will for those others who have sadly left the sporting world this month.