🔗 Share this article

What do you boost a stellar veteran side that have secured back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 wins from 32 matches?

Bring in a group of ex- pro players who have competed at the elite level of club and global soccer as you pursue more silverware.

A Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional vets squad with 9 former Premier League players in their present squad.

222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances

The team Vets Over-35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Tier.

The lineup this campaign boasts 9 ex- Premier League players, with a total over 1,800 top-flight appearances.

The elite roster also includes over 220 Premier League goals and 325 international appearances.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a half-hour opening period hat-trick.

The team for this season also includes ex- professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have secured fifteen major honors and moved for combined transfer fees of around £123 million.

Household Figures and International Players

Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this summer through close mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to join in.

Former Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 top-flight games for Everton and even now attends their home games, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.

"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said Niasse.

"After that he told me we were facing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?

"The people who turn up and watch are pleased and to give someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, he had his debut at defender.

"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

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

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

Dreamlike' Experience

In addition to the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.

"It was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow.

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

"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got over 60 English appearances.

"Our side competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was tough.

"We literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.

"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of normal fellas.

"Now we are eager for the return fixture."

We Will Still Take the League'

The manager manages the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"Our team went one-nil up and had a