🔗 Share this article

What do you boost a excellent experienced team who have won back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting 30 wins from thirty-two matches?

Recruit a raft of former pro players who have played at the highest tier of club and international soccer as you target additional honors.

One Manchester side has an non-professional veterans team with 9 ex- top-flight footballers in their active roster.

222 Top Division Scores, 325 International Appearances

The team Vets Over-35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Premier Tier.

The roster this campaign features 9 former top-flight players, with a total 1,801 elite appearances.

The high-profile team also contains over 220 top division goals and 325 international appearances.

The squad include one forward, who scored 37 goals in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field match versus defending title holders their rivals and scored all six scores in a six-two victory - including a 32-minute opening period triple.

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

Together, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 significant trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123m.

Well-Known Figures and Global Stars

Ireland began playing for the team in preseason this summer through close friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.

Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for Everton and still attends their home games, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.

"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!

"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"The fans who come and watch are pleased and to make someone's day if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at full-back.

"That's a bit unusual but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.

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

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

Dreamlike' Experience

Along with Cisse's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one match up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.

He has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as featuring in more than 200 Premier League matches.

"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.

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

"Even Heskey came on and he's has over 60 English appearances.

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

"Our group literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.

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

"Now we are eager for the return fixture."

We Will Still Take the League'

The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Top Division title last season, along with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 ahead and had a