STAN Collymore will play his first game for SIX years when he lines up for the England Legends against the Scotland Legends in the Alan Ball Memorial Cup.

Collymore has joined Chris Woods, Paul Parker, Des Walker, Mark Wright, Nigel Winterburn, Bryan Robson, Paul Merson, Ray Parlour and Les Ferdinand in England Legends manager Peter Reid's squad.

A broken leg forced the 37-year-old to retire from professional football, aged 30. But he is now preparing for his first match since 2002 at St Mary's on May 15.

Collymore said: "I met Alan Ball several times at various events and last saw him at the final Test of the last Ashes series in Sydney at the beginning of last year.

"Like everyone else, when he passed away at a relatively young age a few months later I was very shocked.

"He was before my time as a player but I like to think of myself as something of an English football historian so was well aware of the impact he had.

"A lot of players don't appreciate the history of the game and what we don't do well in this country is remember our former players with enough affection.

"We had to wait until Bobby Moore died before he was given the tributes he deserved and it was the same with Bally.

Full story in today's Daily Echo