Football fans will be in for a real treat with Jimmy Bullard to play in the Kent Reliance Veteran’s Cup Final.

Wednesday night sees the Kent Reliance Kent Veterans Cup Final at Chatham Town’s Maidstone Road Sports Ground between Hollands and Blair and Crayford One Bell, and in the Crayford’s side number is a player who needs no introduction to football fans in North Kent.

Former Gravesend and Northfleet favourite Jimmy Bullard will be in the One Bell’s side, and it’s hardly surprising really given that it’s actually Bullard’s pub.

Speaking to KSN, Chris Tulley, who founded the One Bell side and manages the team, told us how the side began and how Bullard got involved.

“I started the team at the beginning of this season, with the support of a few of our friends, the players who all
wanted to play together in the same side, we just about made the entry to the vets league in time!”

“We were put in a newly formed 5th division of the Southern Vets League which hasn’t been ideal, but we have got on with it.”

“Jim’s been a good friend of ours for a number of years. When he brought the pub (The One Bell – Crayford) we were seeing more and more of him and when we told him about forming a vets side, he was well up for being involved and for us to use the pub as our base, hence the team name Crayford One Bell!”

“Jim’s a character on and off the pitch, what you see in the media, TV is no show, he is generally nuts, which is a perfect fit for us as the majority of us are bonkers too!”

“You can see a mile off he has played at the highest level and obviously that helps us, but we don’t just get our results because of him, Jim can’t win a game turning up on his own, we have a good team around him which get’s us our results!”

“At first when I spoke to him, he was buzzing about us and said ‘I’m in’. To be honest, I thought we may get a few games from him, mainly due to his media workload, but credit to him, he has been there every week!”

“A lot of people get the idea that we are the globetrotters of vets football with all these ex professionals playing week in, week out, which is far from it, in fact, for a few of our boys it’s the first season they have played for 20 years!”

Chris then admitted that by having such a famous member of his squad, it does have its’ difficulties.

“With that reputation it doesn’t make it easy for us at all, as everyone we play raises their game to try and beat us, so far this year the boys have done well in overcoming this which shows in our stats so far,” he said.

And so to Wednesday evening’s final, and what does he expect from Hollands & Blair.

“I’ve heard our opponents are a very good side and I think we go into it as underdogs. Having played another tough semi final the other Saturday, I’m hoping these old boys will be able to two games in a short space of time and that we rise to the occasion.”

“That said, I will have the WD40 with me in the physio bag should I hear any creaking from the players!”

We also spoke with the Blair boss Ryan Plummer and asked him how his side were going to manage playing against a player like Bullard.

He admitted: “We’ve watched Jimmy enough on ‘You know the drill’,” with a smile on his face the Blair boss added, “I think he’s well past his best! Seriously you have to respect what he’s achieved in the game – it’s more than a lot of us ever dream of.”

“Just hope this may be one game too far for him. I’m sure he will bring some entertainment to the match mind”

“We’re delighted to have made the Final this year, especially after the disappointment last year of being kicked out of
the competition having won our semi final for playing a player we shouldn’t have.”

“We’ve not had too many games this year, but it’s been great getting the lads together. Must admit my “highlight” of
the season so far isn’t very sporting, but certainly brought a smile to some faces.”

“In one game our captain Ross Brookes was through on goal only for his own player Sam Tydeman to bring him down in the box. The opposition didn’t know what to make of it and to be fair nor did we!”

“We’ve not had too many lows due to our success, however we recently lost our first veterans match against a local Snodland team which was disappointing as we also exited the Canterbury Cup on the back of this result. We have only been established for a couple of years now and have played 14 games, won 13 and lost 1!”

Finally we asked Ryan if with a record like that and almost playing at “home”, were Blair favourites. Whilst he wouldn’t commit, the Blair boss did say, “Possibly! There’s not many of our players that haven’t played at Chatham Town before so we know what to expect.”

Full coverage of Wednesday night’s game from 7:00pm on @ksnfootball