Dudley Town vice-chairman Stephen Austin is bursting with pride after his team put up a brave fight in their five-a-side match against a group of ex-professionals.

The Sport Italia West Midlands Premier Division side won an Express & Star competition to take on ‘The Mavericks’ team of ex-Villa duo Stan Collymore and Paul Merson, Neville Southall, Ray Parlour and Jamie Lawrence. as part of the Grass Roots Football LIVE event.

Chris Waterhouse, Sam Tasker, Rob Perks, Craig Shaw, Danny Koumi, Danny Ashton, James Pemberton and Craig Beresford were the eight lucky members of the squad handed a chance to shine in front of Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp, their boss for the clash.

The professionals’ pedigree eventually told as they ran out 3-1 winners but Town certainly did not look out of place, left to rue a combination of missed chances and superb Southall saves.

Austin said: “It has been an absolutely fantastic opportunity really, for all of us to get involved in anything like this. It has helped the profile of the club. Most of them haven’t played against professional footballers before so it’s given them an opportunity.

“I think they did us proud, they didn’t look out of place. It was very, very close. We had eight lads here so it’s been difficult to choose who played but these are the lads who have stuck with us this season.

“The amount of children we have seen here from amateur clubs is just phenomenal. It raises the profile of football in this country and that’s important for us.”

Collymore opened the scoring against the run of play but it proved to be the Cannock-born striker’s last act as he pulled up with a muscle injury while shooting. Former Arsenal midfielder Parlour made it two with a cool finish before Koumi, who was with Villa as a youngster, pulled one back with a low drive in off the post.

Any hopes of a fightback were put to bed when Parlour’s long-range effort flew past wrong-footed stopper Pemberton.

Manager Perks said: “It has been great to get involved in something like this, especially for us who play at a decent level ourselves. It was great for us to come out and play against the big boys.”

Skipper Waterhouse added: “We could have won it. They knew how to slow the game down. They had three chances and scored. James made a couple of good saves but we had a few chances but just didn’t finish them.”