🔗 Share this article

How do you enhance a outstanding veteran squad who have won back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 games?

Bring in a collection of ex- professionals that have played at the top tier of club football and international football as you pursue additional silverware.

One Greater Manchester club has an non-professional vets team with nine former Premier League players in their current roster.

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

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are based in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Tier.

The squad list this campaign includes nine former top-flight footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 top-flight appearances.

This high-profile team also includes over 220 top division goals and 325 global appearances.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.

He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

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

Together, the former top-flight footballers have secured fifteen major trophies and moved for total transfer fees of around £123 million.

Household Figures and International Players

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team in preseason this summer through close friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.

Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their strip.

"My mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.

"After that he informed me we were facing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!

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

"Those people who come and watch are happy and to give a moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."

So great is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his debut at full-back.

"That's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."

Unreal Scenario

In addition to Cisse's six goals on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game up front.

The team are leading of the Premier Tier with three wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against former Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in over 200 Premier League matches.

"It was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight stars," said Barrow.

"I felt I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest.

"Also Heskey got on and he's got over 60 England caps.

"Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group really haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the way home.

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

"Now we are eager for the return match."

'We'll Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans team, who secured the Top Tier title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"Our team went 1-0 up and had a