It might be a million miles from Brazil in the Stade de France but Colin Hendry and some well-known mates are still strutting their stuff most weekends on a CRICKET ground in Lytham St Annes.
Big Braveheart hasn’t swapped his boots for a bat, though. It’s just the venue for an over-35 football team that features Scott Brown and Steven Whittaker, the former Rangers and Celtic rivals turned managerial double act at Fleetwood Town just along the Fylde coast.
Hendry’s love of the game is as strong as ever and for as long as his legs will carry him, the 57-year-old will keep turning out for the Clifton Casuals. He told Record Sport on our Off the Record podcast: “There’s a good few of us. Scotty, big Whitts, Brian O’Neill, Jamie Milligan – who was at Blackpool and Everton – and Gavin McCann, who had a great career at Aston Villa, Sunderland, Bolton and Everton.
“We love it. We’re just little boys and we can’t get enough of it. We don’t all play at the same time because we are here, there and everywhere. But it’s been going now for about 10 years at the cricket ground in Lytham St Annes.
“The teams we play against all know they’ll be up against us. There are some times when it gets a bit tetchy because the younger ones, as they do, think they can take on the more experienced ones. Which is fine, I don’t have a problem with that.
“As long as I can run, I’m OK! I can deal with everything else. But it really, really is great fun.”
READ NEXT