It’s sad to say it, but the loyalty in football has gone. Make no mistake, it's been eroding away for years, but now it has well and truly disappeared.

Gone are the days when a player will spend an entire career at his boyhood club, especially if his team is not winning trophies every year.

Never again will you see an example like Steve Bull at Wolves, playing for the team he loved for the duration of his career.

Granted his playing days started at rivals West Brom, where he made just a handful of appearances, but over 500 starts, and 13 years at Molineux followed.

Back in the day, footballers playing for their local club, and often the one they supported, was the norm.

But in this day and age fans love nothing more than cheering on ‘one of their own’. The reason? Because it is now such a rarity.

That brings me onto Craig Gardner – a big Bluenose – who became an instant St Andrew’s hero when he declared his love for the club.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Gardner on a number of occasions and I bought into his passion of playing for the club he adored.

Deep down I still know how much playing for Blues meant to him.

During the good times, he wanted better, and throughout the bad times he knew it wasn’t good enough.

He was also affectionately known by some other playing members of the team as ‘Mr Birmingham’.

I remember Ben Foster saying to me before the Carling Cup Final how much it would mean to Gardner if they won it. I also saw Gardner’s face when he had to withdraw from the Wembley showpiece with an injury.

Gardner was, and still is, a 110-per-center who wears his heart on his sleeve. He sweat blood and tears for Blues.

But in the end, long after many other footballers have committed far worse crimes, he decided that his career was more important than the club.

And who’s to blame him when you see the likes of Andy Carroll leaving Newcastle, the club he grew up supporting, in favour of a big-money move elsewhere?

Michael Owen upped and left when Real Madrid came knocking at Anfield.

Alan Smith left Leeds, and so on.

Football has changed and there is no place for loyalty any more.

If you are loyal, you’ll have a place in a few thousand fans’ hearts for life. But you’ll most probably never succeed to the maximum of your ability.

The one contradiction to this theory is Roberto Martinez who showed an incredible amount of loyalty to turn down Aston Villa and remain as Wigan boss.

Whether he will ever get a shot at another big club remains to be seen.

With Gardner, many Blues fans quesioned his love for the club because they believed if it meant so much to him, he would stay and help them out of the mess they are currently in.