🔗 Share this article

How can you improve a outstanding veteran squad who have secured consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 matches?

Bring in a raft of former professionals that have performed at the top tier of club football and global football as you target more trophies.

A Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional veterans team with nine ex- Premier League players in their current roster.

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

The team Veterans Over-35s are situated in south the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Top Tier.

The squad list this season boasts 9 former top-flight footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 Premier League games.

This high-profile roster also contains over 220 top division goals and over 320 international appearances.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field match versus defending champions their rivals and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

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

Together, the former top-flight players have won fifteen major honors and moved for total transfer fees of about £123 million.

Famous Names and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland began playing for the team in pre-season this season through close mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their strip.

"A friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.

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

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

"The people who come and see are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at full-back.

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

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

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

Unreal Experience

In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match as a striker.

The team are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred top-flight matches.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," said the player.

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

"Also Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England caps.

"Our side held our own for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group really haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.

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

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

We Will Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"We went one-nil up and had a