Oh, is he still playing?!

[Gangster Octopus]

He looked old when I saw him at the Don Valley playing for Chester in the late noughties, before he joined us and then moved on to Morecambe. Delighted to see that he's up to his old trick of scoring against former employers...

[Third rate Leszno]

42. But he's younger than Danny Bulman at Crawley.

[Gangster Octopus]

Just how old is Kevin Ellison?

[salt n shake]

Paul Bastock (50 years old) is on the bench tonight for King's Lynn. He's the goalkeeping coach and apparently has the record for most competitive club appearances in world football, though I don't know where that stat originates (I got it from the live feed of the game).

[Ray de Galles]

38 year old Neil Danns has signed for Connah's Quay Nomads. It's mainly notable because the reports make much of him being an "ex-Premier League player".

While it's true that 5 of his 593 career appearances came in that competition (the most recent 13 years ago) I'm not sure it's the first thing that springs to mind about him.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Nile Ranger, still only 29, has joined Spalding United, intending to prove to everyone that the penny has dropped and he can get his head down and focus on football.

Already surging back up through the divisions - signed for Southend on a month to month contract recently.

[beak]

I'd make 'em play in diving boots.

[treibeis]

I'm picturing myself as some fat lad who's always been shite but plays on the Sunday for a laugh with mates, and I know that twice a season I'm going to wake up, likely hungover, and spend my morning trying to mark fucking Milan Baros. Doesn't seem quite fair.

I've mentioned this before, but there's a team in the same over-35s league as my local club that had (or maybe still has) a forward line consisting of Ivan Klasnic and Ivica Olic.

[beak]

Andr? Onana's twelve-month ban for "taking his wife's medicine" has meant a return to the Ajax starting XI for Maarten Stekelenburg.

[Ray de Galles]

Roy Carroll: Former NI and Manchester United keeper ready for Irish League return at 43

[Patrick Thistle]

Yeah. But that one time you meg him. You can dine out on that.

[beak]

Always conflicted when I read these kind of things. On a level it's nice that these folk obviously have such a commitment to the game they're happy to go back down the levels and play for their local team or whatnot, but on the other hand I'm picturing myself as some fat lad who's always been shite but plays on the Sunday for a laugh with mates, and I know that twice a season I'm going to wake up, likely hungover, and spend my morning trying to mark fucking Milan Baros. Doesn't seem quite fair.

[jameswba]

I remember mentioning Baros after my last visit to Ostrava, in April 2018. I first saw him play for them as an 18 year-old in 2000, in Olomouc.

A lot of Czech and Slovak players do what he's done ; end their professional careers and start turning out for 5th/6th tier village sides for free (or perhaps expenses). Rosina, the village nearest to where I live, had a guy called Radoslav Zabavnik playing for them till a year ago - he'd previously played for Sparta Prague and Mainz amongst others, plus 58 internationals for Slovakia. He's probably still on the books, though they've only played 5-6 games since Covid hit. I went to a game there perhaps two years ago, and Rosina played the first 15 minutes with 10 men as Zabavnik had been stuck in traffic coming up from Bratislava.

[Ray de Galles]

https://twitter.com/mundialmag/status/1350375728290947074?s=21

[Third rate Leszno]

I've got to thank Liverpool's match programme for this one, but Frode Kippe has come out of retirement at the age of 42 and played a few minutes as sub in two games for Lillestrom because of a defensive injury crisis. In doing so he became the first player who'd played for Liverpool in the 1990s to make a professional appearance in 2020.

[Ray de Galles]

I've always had a soft spot for Halford and this is a great story ;

At 36 years old, having not played for 18 months and without a club during a financially-crippling pandemic, Greg Halford feared he would have to end his career prematurely.

But last month the former Sunderland, Cardiff, Nottingham Forest, Portsmouth and Colchester defender offered to play for free for the rest of 2020 and - after joining League Two Southend at 18:30 GMT on Tuesday - scored in their 3-1 win over Grimsby less than three hours later.

[3 Colours Red]

No, just a general "career going down the tubes" from which it never recovered.

[fatbear]

It was all going fine until he went to Villa, then the shit hit the fan.

If that is a reference to the incident at the Wycombe cup match, Lescott was actually the peace-maker.........

[Gangster Octopus]

Is that near Barnsley?

[ursus arctos]

Mario Balotelli has signed for Monza in Serie B, reuniting with Berlusconi, Galliani, Brocchi and other "old friends"

[3 Colours Red]

Didn’t quite work out for him did it?

It was all going fine until he went to Villa, then the shit hit the fan.

[jwdd27]

Lescott apparently agreed to play an exhibition match, which got lost in translation and they announced they'd signed him for the cup game.

They have recent form for bullshitting for publicity, they announced Samuel Eto'o's signing last month.

[Sits]

Didn’t quite work out for him did it?

[3 Colours Red]

Joleon Lescott to play for Racing Murcia in the Copa del Ray against Levante, presume the reason why will come out eventually

Four days older than me... there's still hope!

[gavc23]

Joleon Lescott to play for Racing Murcia in the Copa del Ray against Levante, presume the reason why will come out eventually