To enter, email the name and age of your hero wrinkly to: goldenoldies@the-sun.co.uk Include your own name and address as wel as your daytime tel number.

The Sun will profile the leading contenders in the paper, tablet and online.

*******************************************************

April 22, 2015 - Ex-Prem striker, 43, makes 550-mile round trips to play for Truro and stays in caravan

BARRY HAYLES played in the Premier League, starred ten times for Jamaica and celebrated his 43rd birthday five days ago.

So you can be forgiven for thinking the former Fulham striker has hung up his boots and is taking it easy.

Well, think again.

Because Hayles is still playing football and, what’s more, he makes a 550-mile round trip to get to his HOME games!

Yep, you read it right. Hayles lives in Kent but plays for Southern League Premier Division side Truro City in Cornwall.

He travels down the day before games and stays . . . in the club chairman’s caravan.

“It’s not one at the bottom of his garden,” laughs Hayles, the hitman who once cost Kevin Keegan a £2million transfer fee.

“The chairman has a luxury mobile homes site and he puts me up in one of the caravans.

“It has everything I need and does me just fine.”

His 13-season league career — scoring 120 goals in 432 appearances — ended five years ago at Cheltenham.

Hayles now plays on in the seventh tier of English football but has lost none of his competitive edge.

He said: “I still have the passion to play and win games.
“That’s what drives me on and why I’ll spend five hours on trains getting to Truro for a match.

“If I’ve played well I get a buzz from it but if it’s not gone so well, I beat myself up about it.

“Losing a game for Truro hurts just as much as losing one in the Premier League. If it didn’t have that effect on me then I wouldn’t keep playing.”

It is 18 years since Hayles made his league debut with Bristol Rovers, managed back then by Ian Holloway.

Hayles said: “He promised me he would get a team together that would get me scoring goals in the league.

“We were tipped to go down but ended up making a promotion push and scoring the most goals in the league at the time.”

But not every match went their way.

He added: “We lost one game and the other striker wasn’t pulling his weight. When we came into the dressing room I went a bit mad and let him know what I thought.

“The other players were trying to stop me. But Ian said ‘No, Barry’s right, let him get it off his chest’.
“I absolutely let loose and ended up, shall we say, manhandling the guy.”

Hayles’ start of ten goals in 19 games the next season had Keegan — twice European Footballer of the Year — signing him for Fulham. Hayles recalled: “Keegan was a character too. He had a reputation and a few of the boys were in awe of him.

“But a few days after joining my car went into the garage and I got the train in.

“Keegan asked how long my car was going to be in the garage and I said another few days. He said he wasn’t using his car and told me to use it. “I ended up driving his car for four days. It was a top-of-the-range seven series BMW, the longest car I’d ever been in. Thankfully, I didn’t crash it.” Frenchman Jean Tigana took over as boss when Keegan left and Hayles feared the boot.

He said: “He was a foreign manager, had a different style of play and I thought I wouldn’t fit in his plans.

“But he called me in and said I was in them. He told me he could get me to the next level with fitness and dietary stuff.
“The proof was in the pudding. I felt fitter and we won the title to reach the Premier League.

“As a lad I always wanted to play in the top league and I got my dream. A lot of people might have thought it had passed me by. I was 29 and had turned pro only four years before.”

Now, 14 years on, Hayles is hoping to bag another promotion — helping Truro reach the Conference South.

Hayles, who is doing his Uefa B coaching badge, said: “Promotion with Truro will be just as special. People have said I’ve got to stay on if we go up.

“I keep saying that if my phone rings and people want me then I’ll keep playing.”