🔗 Share this article

What do you boost a excellent experienced squad who have claimed consecutive titles, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty wins from 32 games?

Sign a group of ex- professionals that have performed at the top tier of club football and international football as you aim for more honors.

A Greater Manchester side has an amateur veterans team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their present squad.

222 Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances

The team Vets Over-35s are based in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Division.

Their squad list this campaign features 9 ex- top-flight players, with a combined over 1,800 top-flight matches.

The high-profile team also boasts over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 international caps.

They feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their last home match against defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The team for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former top-flight footballers have secured 15 significant honors and moved for combined transfer sums of around £123 million.

Famous Figures and International Players

Ireland began turning out for the team in preseason this season through good friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 Premier League games for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.

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

"After that he told me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!

"When you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"The people who turn up and watch are happy and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at full-back.

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

"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.

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

Dreamlike' Experience

In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for the side, while Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker.

The team are leading of the Top Tier with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in over two hundred Premier League games.

"It was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.

"I think I was a bit awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got over 60 English appearances.

"Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group really have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home.

"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of regular fellas.

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

'We'll Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the opposition veterans side, who won the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team went 1-0 ahead and had a