A veteran football team fell agonisingly short as they looked to bag a famous win over a team of former Carlisle United all-stars.

The match between the two sides was set up to celebrate the opening of Thursby’s Jubilee playing fields and saw a village side go head to head with Blues stars of yesteryear..

Despite pulling a goal back late on, the Thursby Veterans were unable to find an equaliser as the United all-stars ran out 3-2 winners.

However the match - which also raised funds for the Thursby Sports and Recreation Committee and Tony Hopper’s ‘Creating Hoppy Moments’ charity - was played in good spirits with players from both sides giving it their all.

“We’ve been working on the playing field for the last three years or so,” Richard Johnston, secretary of the committee told the News & Star. “We played a Carlisle United all-star team about 18 months ago and they said they’d like to come back once we’d finished work on the playing field.

“This was set up as a way to mark the fact that all the work has now been completed and we’re good to go. Colin Carter, who refereed the game, managed to get the Carlisle team together and we decided to have a fundraiser for the committee as well as in support of Tony Hopper.”

Richard added that he was pleased by how many people had attended to support both teams, with scores cheering on from the sidelines. “It’s good to see so many people here, to be honest,” he added.

“The thing is, we’ve been keeping the village notified of what we’ve been doing ever since we started work, so I suppose that they feel a connection to what’s been going on.

Both Richard and Graeme Cross, manager of the Thursby Veterans side, said that the new facility will be well-used by members of the team, as veterans football in Thursby continues to go from strength to strength.

“The veterans team play once a months, it’s a great chance for the guys to come here and play a proper game of football,” Graeme said.

“We’ve got players from about 40 right up until 60. When they’re playing in a 35 and over league, it can sometimes be a bit too much - they struggle to keep up. It would be great to set up a proper veterans league because I think there’s a lot of people out there who would want to play.

"We decided to organise a game like this because the fields are complete, now. You can see how uneven the pitch was before if you look around, but it's been flattened now and it's a great pitch to play on."

Richard added: “We’re all guys who have played a lot of football so having a game like this is always popular. It’s early days yet but it’d be good if we could make the game against the Carlisle team a yearly event.”