🔗 Share this article

What can you boost a stellar experienced squad who have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double with 30 wins from thirty-two matches?

Sign a raft of former pro players that have competed at the elite level of club football and international soccer as you pursue further honors.

A Greater Manchester team boasts an amateur veterans team with nine former top-flight footballers in their present roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances

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

The lineup this campaign boasts 9 ex- top-flight players, with a combined over 1,800 top-flight matches.

The star-studded team also includes over 220 top division scores and 325 international appearances.

The squad include one forward, who scored thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

The squad for this campaign also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 significant honors and moved for total transfer sums of around £123 million.

Famous Names and Global Players

Stephen Ireland began playing for the team in preseason this summer through good friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited other former professionals, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen told me 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.

"Then he told me we were facing a side from the city 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 feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The fans who come and watch are pleased and to give a moment if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.

"That's a bit different but then, I enjoy running and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.

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

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

Unreal Scenario

In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a triple in one match up front.

The team are top of the Premier Tier with 3 wins from three and a GD of +19.

One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in more than 200 Premier League games.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.

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

"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd English caps.

"We competed well for a solid 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 mother and sibling on the journey home.

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

"Now we are eager for the return fixture."

We Will Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets team, who won the Premier Tier title last season, together with his co-manager.

"We went one-nil up and had a