🔗 Share this article

What can you boost a excellent veteran side that have secured back-to-back championships, including a double triumph with 30 wins from thirty-two games?

Recruit a raft of ex- pro players that have played at the elite level of club football and global football as you pursue further trophies.

One Manchester side fields an non-professional veterans squad with 9 former Premier League players in their current squad.

222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances

The team Veterans Over-35s are located in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Top Division.

Their roster this campaign includes nine former top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 elite appearances.

The elite team also includes over 220 top division goals and over 320 international caps.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 scores in over 100 games for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home game versus defending title holders their rivals and scored all six goals in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.

The roster for this season also includes ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- top-flight players have claimed 15 big trophies and moved for combined transfer fees of about £123 million.

Well-Known Figures and Global Players

Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this summer through close mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited additional ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.

Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker.

"After that he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!

"When you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?

"Those spectators who come and watch are pleased and to make a day if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse had his first game at full-back.

"That's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.

"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."

'Surreal Feeling

In addition to the forward's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his debut match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced former Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than two hundred top-flight games.

"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.

"I felt I was a little starstruck playing against him to be honest.

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

"Our side competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home.

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

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

'We'll Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"Our team went 1-0 up and had a