🔗 Share this article

How do you boost a excellent veteran side that have won back-to-back championships, including a double triumph boasting 30 wins from 32 games?

Sign a group of ex- pro players that have performed at the top tier of club football and global soccer as you target more silverware.

One Manchester team has an non-professional veterans squad with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their active lineup.

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

The team Veterans Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.

The roster this campaign includes nine former top-flight footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 elite games.

The elite roster also contains 222 Premier League scores and 325 global appearances.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home-field match against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The team for this season also features former professionals such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have claimed 15 significant honors and moved for total transfer fees of approximately £123 million.

Well-Known Names and Global Players

Ireland started turning out for the team during preseason this season through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and still attends their home games, also had his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.

"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.

"After that he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I say this is strange for me!

"If you still love the game and you feel you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"Those people who come and watch are happy and to make someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.

"It's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.

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

'Surreal Experience

Along with the forward's six goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three games for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in over 200 top-flight matches.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.

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

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

"We held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

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

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

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

'We'll Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets side, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a