🔗 Share this article

What do you boost a excellent experienced squad that have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from 32 matches?

Bring in a raft of former professionals who have competed at the highest tier of club and global football as you pursue further silverware.

A Manchester side has an amateur veterans squad with 9 former top-flight 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 south the city and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Division.

Their lineup this season includes 9 former Premier League footballers, with a collective over 1,800 elite matches.

The high-profile squad also contains 222 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.

They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home game versus reigning champions their rivals and scored all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.

Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former top-flight players have secured fifteen significant honors and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.

Famous Names and Global Players

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side during preseason this summer through good mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored 12 scores in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A mate Stephen Ireland told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," said Niasse.

"After that he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me!

"When you still love football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those fans who turn up and watch are pleased and to make someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

So great is the strength in depth at the club, he had his debut at defender.

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

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

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

Unreal Feeling

Along with Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one match up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in over 200 top-flight games.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.

"I think I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.

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

"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.

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

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

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

'We'll Still Take the League'

The manager coaches the Collegiate vets team, who secured the Top Division championship last season, together with his co-manager.

"Our team went 1-0 up and had a