To celebrate his 40th birthday in October Aaron Wilbraham, a boyhood Manchester City fan who was released by the club as a teenager, booked out the Mancunian suite at the Etihad Stadium. The Rochdale striker set a sky-blue theme, with teammates and friendly foes from across his career suited and booted, including Alex Bruce, son of Steve, the Newcastle manager, whom Wilbraham roomed with while studying for his Uefa B Licence in Belfast 18 months ago. But on Tuesday night Wilbraham can play the role of party pooper in the FA Cup third-round replay at St James’ Park. “I’m trying not to upset the Bruce family as well as doing well for Rochdale,” he says, laughing.

It is a delicate conundrum given that the subplots do not stop there – Alex’s sister, Amy, an interior designer, recently styled the extension on Wilbraham’s house in Wilmslow. An evergreen performer, Wilbraham stepped off the bench at Spotland to earn a replay after replacing the 16-year-old Kwadwo Baah at half-time 10 days ago, leading to an inevitable exchange on WhatsApp. “We have a group chat from the coaching course and everyone from it was telling me well done for scoring and Alex said: ‘Who needs enemies when you have friends like this?’ And then he texted me privately, saying: ‘We are no longer friends.’ We had a good laugh about it.”

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Wilbraham scored his first league goal in 1998, against City for Stockport County at Maine Road, where he still had a season ticket at the time, and the striker has had countless memorable duels over the years, and notably one skirmish with Bruce, when the defender was at Leeds. “We had a little bit of a fight,” says Wilbraham, recalling a 2-2 draw for Norwich in 2011. “He threw a sneaky little punch at me and then the whistle went so it all calmed down. But we always wind each other up about it. I always say he backed off and ran down the tunnel and he always says I never did anything about it.”

Wilbraham’s remarkable durability has earned him the nickname “Peter Pan” at Rochdale, where his manager, Brian Barry-Murphy, is a year his senior and Luke Matheson, who supplied the cross for his equaliser against Newcastle, is three years older than Wilbraham’s 14-year-old daughter, but there is another moniker that makes him smile. “I like Wilbrahimovic – it’s a good one,” he says. “Norwich fans labelled me that. Paul Lambert used to put me on for 20-25 minutes in the Premier League and I remember three or four games on the bounce I was doing all these backheels and flicks and, because they were all coming off, I ended up getting that tag and it has been passed on.”

He has more in common with Zlatan Ibrahimovic than one might expect, with both having recently achieved the remarkable goalscoring feat of scoring in four decades. It means Wilbraham joins a select club of illustrious players to do so, including Sir Stanley Matthews, and, for the forward, that goal against Newcastle provided further evidence he is not making up the numbers, having struck an 88th-minute winner to help Bolton avoid relegation in 2018 before joining Rochdale that summer. “I’ve managed to create a little bit of history wherever I go.”

Wilbraham won promotion to the Premier League with Norwich and Crystal Palace before joining Bristol City, initially on a one-year deal, at 34. “Steve Cotterill said to me it was because the owners had been burnt in the past by older players just coming in picking up the money, sitting around injured. He said: ‘I can only give you a year to start with but, if you back yourself to play enough games, then I’ll put something in the contract where, if you play so many games, you’ll get another year. I had to fight for that but, in doing so, I ended up scoring 21 goals and winning the league. I loved it there and I’m still in a group chat with the lads. Whenever I score they are like: ‘Nah, seriously Alby, you need to grow up now, what are you doing still scoring?’”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Wilbraham battles for the ball with Isaac Hayden. Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP via Getty Images

This year marks Wilbraham’s 24th as a professional and his longevity is surely the envy of many. A few months younger than Kevin Ellison and Dannie Bulman, who play in League Two for Morecambe and Crawley respectively, he is the third-oldest player in the Football League.

At Stockport he played alongside Simon Grayson and Paul Cook, now managers at Blackpool and Wigan respectively, and against Chris Wilder. “When I keep seeing people retire that are younger than me, it is a mad feeling. I used to play against teams each week and I’d know four or five people on the opposition team whereas now I usually know three or four on the opposition bench instead, the assistant managers or fitness coaches.

“The physio at Burton, Nick Fenton, I was with him and his twin, Anthony, at Manchester City as an under-15. Every time I play against Burton, he’s like: ‘How are you still going?’”

From the million-dollar question comes an answer that speaks volumes for his professionalism and personality. “I don’t like to miss any training,” Wilbraham says. “If the boys are doing 12 sprints at the end of training and the fitness coach says: ‘Do you just want to do eight?’ I’d rather do 12 because I want the boys around me to know I can do as much as them. I still train every day. I’m still competitive in training – I want to win – it’s not as if I just float through sessions. If I was injured all the time, not playing or not even getting on the bench, I suppose I would start to think it is time to call it a day but I am still heavily involved in the squad and starting games. I’m still a big part of the team and, as long as I’m involved, I just want to carry on as long as I can.”