🔗 Share this article

How do you enhance a excellent veteran squad who have secured consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Bring in a collection of ex- pro players that have performed at the top tier of club football and global soccer as you aim for additional trophies.

One Manchester side has an non-professional vets team with nine ex- Premier League players in their active lineup.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 Global Appearances

The team Veterans Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Tier.

Their lineup this season features 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight appearances.

This star-studded team also includes over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 international caps.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 scores in 117 appearances for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.

He had his debut for the team in their last home-field game against defending champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - including a half-hour opening period triple.

The roster for this campaign also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League footballers have claimed fifteen major trophies and moved for total transfer fees of around £123 million.

Household Figures and International Players

Ireland began turning out for the team during preseason this summer through good friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League games for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

"After that he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

"When you still love football and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those fans who come and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."

So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he made his first game at full-back.

"It's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

"I warn my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

"The running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."

Dreamlike' Experience

Along with Cisse's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for the side, while Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one game up front.

The team are leading of the Top Tier with three victories from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in more than 200 top-flight matches.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked Barrow.

"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.

"Also Heskey got on and he's has over 60 England appearances.

"We competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"We really have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.

"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of normal guys.

"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Premier Tier title last season, together with his co-manager.

"We went one-nil ahead and had a