🔗 Share this article

How do you enhance a stellar veteran squad that have claimed back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting 30 wins from 32 games?

Recruit a collection of ex- pro players who have performed at the top tier of club and international soccer as you target additional trophies.

A Greater Manchester club has an non-professional vets team with nine former Premier League footballers in their present squad.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps

The team Veterans Over 35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Top Division.

The roster this season includes nine former Premier League footballers, with a combined 1,801 Premier League appearances.

This high-profile team also includes over 220 top division goals and over 320 international appearances.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field match against defending title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.

Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes former pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have secured fifteen major trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of approximately £123 million.

Household Figures and International Players

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team in preseason this summer through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.

Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen said 'join and play, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.

"After that he informed me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue shirts - I say this is strange for me!

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

"The fans who come and see are happy and to make someone's day if they see us playing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at full-back.

"It's a little 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 staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.

"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."

'Surreal Feeling

Along with Cisse's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Tier with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

He has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.

"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," remarked Barrow.

"I think I was a bit starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.

"Even Heskey came on and he's has over 60 England caps.

"We competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group literally have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home.

"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.

"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."

'We'll Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets side, who won the Premier Tier title last season, along with his co-manager.

"Our team went one-nil ahead and had a