CAPTAINCY on the football pitch is different to other sports, but, whatever the sport, there are always common attributes that single out a person for leadership.

That person has to be pretty good at what they do; they need to be proficient in their own field and set good examples on and off the pitch, encourage others to set their own standards high and be prepared to be a link between the management and the operations on the field.

In other sports, the role of a captain is different.

In rugby and in cricket, the captain’s role is particularly important. Those games are much more stop-start, particularly in the case of cricket where there are decisions to be made all the time about field-placings and bowling changes.

In rugby, too, there is more emphasis put on the captain.

The captain is almost part of the management team and is much closer to the management side of things whereas in football, while you want the same attributes from your captain, he is still purely on the playing side.

The qualities that any captain shows are qualities that can often lead to management.

I captained Oxford United and Newcastle United for a period of time but played under Kevin Keegan when he was captain at St James Park.

I played under John Wile at West Bromwich Albion for many years. One of my team-mates at The Hawthorns, Bryan Robson, went on to captain Manchester United while, at Oxford, Malcolm Shotton was a good captain.

All of them went on to manage football teams later in their career.

All of them had a passion for the game, a will to win and succeed; something inside the individual driving them on and trying to achieve.

They are all different and these are just a few examples as there are many ways to lead.

Some have the softer touch while others are tougher and more uncompromising. But everyone, in their own way, wants to succeed and that is their driving force.

From the 1960s and early 70s, the name put forward as a great captain is Dave Mackay.

For many people, he is the epitome of what a captain should look like – forceful, a very good player, competitive and tough.

But just as the world has changed, so the game has changed and people’s idea of a captain may have changed, too.

Looking back a generation, there was Mackay, Billy Bremner at Leeds and Tommy Smith at Liverpool, among others – hard men who maybe reflected the time.

Nowadays, you can look around and, while you could probably still find that type of person, there are more captains who are more ‘inclusive’ of their team-mates.

That reflects life nowadays and you cannot separate football from the wider world – people’s approach to situations now has to be different.

You could liken it to management – years ago you had people like Brian Clough, a complete autocrat who would stand no nonsense from anybody.

He could manage that way because that was how football was governed in terms of players’ employment . You could control and manage players differently then.

There were many other examples of that type of manager.

Just as Mackay was the epitome of the captain on the field then Clough was the epitome of the no-nonsense, do-it-my-way-or-else approach to management – and in his case it proved absolutely correct.

I’m not sure that he could get away with that approach now – he would have to find a different way of going about the job, which I am sure he would do.

He was a man of his time in the same way, in an entirely different sphere, that Winston Churchill was a man of his time.

He was the ‘captain’ of the country and more than anyone in recent history stood his ground, held firm, led by examples, inspired others and although going through lots of trauma, bad times, suffering defeats and having lots of setbacks, never lost sight of what he was trying to achieve, not just for himself, but for the country.

From his powerful words and actions, he led the country through one of the most difficult periods in history and came out triumphant.

He was a man for his time and situation.