I was there nine years ago to see football history made at Southampton’s old ground.

The Dell was not the most obvious stage for ground-breaking moments but on Boxing Day 1999, Chelsea broke the Premier League mould by fielding a team entirely made up of foreigners.

Two Italians, two Frenchmen and various representatives from Holland, Romania, Brazil, Nigeria, Spain, Uruguay and Norway. Until Jon Harley appeared off the bench with 20 minutes left, there were nine nations on display – but none of the home ones.

It was flagged up as the afternoon when our top division sold its soul. Many would argue it has never been returned since.

So the Football League’s efforts to bring in a quota rule this week should be welcomed as a small shuffle in the right direction.

On the face of it, nothing will change.

From next season, every team in the bottom three divisions must have at least four locally-developed players in every 16-man squad. Of course, all 72 clubs fit that criteria already.

Bradford City, for example, field one Jamaican and that’s it.

“It’s a vote for commonsense,” said City joint-chairman Julian Rhodes. “But it is no problem for us whatsoever because we’ve no intention of ever getting anywhere the level of foreign players this rule is aimed to stop.”

Mike Newell at Grimsby dismissed the plan as a “publicity stunt” which will have no impact on the lower divisions. He’s missing the point.

The Football League are small beer compared with the mega-millions of their Premier counterparts. But with this idea, set up primarily to safeguard the future of youth development, they are having a little dig at the big boys.

The hope, however forlorn, is that the fat-cats will eventually sit up and take notice. This might be dressed up as a Football League PR exercise but deep down these measures have been drawn up to prick the Premier conscience – if they’ve got one.

It’s the Arsenals of the world, not the Accring-ton’s that this is really about. This is the little man’s way of showing that what Chelsea did at The Dell must never happen again.

That was why the vote was carried through so overwhelmingly on Thursday.

To the top 20 clubs in this country, the opinion of the remaining majority may carry precious little weight. But by at least putting the argument into the public arena, the Football League are making their stand against the foreign gravy train – and making it a talking point within the game.

Football’s shop floor has spoken. Let’s hope the Premier League one day get the message – whatever language they speak.