51-year-old Steve Claridge comes out of retirement for pre-season friendly

Salisbury played Portsmouth in a pre-season friendly at the weekend, and the evergreen quinquagenarian played out 81 minutes of the match.

It was the first time Claridge had put his boots on since 2012, when he finished his playing days at Gosport Borough. Before that, he had played in over 1,000 senior games in a career featuring spells with Leicester, Pompey and Millwall to name but a few of his teams.

Salisbury, his hometown club, are the 23rd side he's turned out for.

Claridge tweeted post-match: "Thanks everybody who came today, Salisbury and Pompey, don't suppose there's four of you who could carry me upstairs to bed is there?"

Despite the ex-striker's tireless efforts up front, Salisbury lost 3-0 to the newly promoted League One side.

Claridge added: “The legs are fine but don’t ring me up in the morning, though! The pace was alright but I did so much chasing of the ball, and when you get it you are knackered so normally games wouldn’t be like that. I did what I had to do and I didn’t get embarrassed.”

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