🔗 Share this article

What do you improve a excellent experienced team who have secured consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty victories from thirty-two matches?

Recruit a raft of ex- pro players who have competed at the elite tier of club football and international soccer as you aim for additional trophies.

A Greater Manchester club fields an amateur vets team with 9 former Premier League players in their present squad.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances

The team Vets Over 35s are located in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Tier.

Their lineup this season features nine ex- top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 elite matches.

The high-profile roster also boasts 222 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.

They include one forward, who scored 37 goals in over 100 games for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his debut for the team in their last home-field match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The squad for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the former Premier League footballers have won 15 significant trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of about £123 million.

Well-Known Figures and Global Players

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this summer through good friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and still goes to their home games, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.

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

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

"The fans who turn up and see are pleased and to make someone's day if they see 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 bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his debut at full-back.

"It's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.

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

"That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."

Dreamlike' Experience

Along with Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three games for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

The team are leading of the Premier Division with three victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in over two hundred top-flight matches.

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

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

"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd English caps.

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

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

"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.

"Now we are eager for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Win the Title'

The manager manages the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Premier Tier title last season, along with his co-manager.

"Our team went 1-0 up and had a