🔗 Share this article

How can you enhance a outstanding experienced team that have secured consecutive titles, including a double triumph boasting thirty wins from thirty-two games?

Recruit a collection of ex- professionals who have competed at the top tier of club and international soccer as you aim for further trophies.

One Manchester club fields an non-professional veterans squad with nine former top-flight players in their active roster.

222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances

The team Vets Over-35s are located in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Tier.

Their lineup this campaign includes nine ex- top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 elite matches.

The star-studded squad also boasts 222 top division scores and 325 international appearances.

They include Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from German league side SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game against defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - including a half-hour opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also features former pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League footballers have won fifteen major honors and moved for total transfer fees of around £123m.

Well-Known Figures and International Stars

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the team during pre-season this season through close mate and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited additional ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also made his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.

"A friend Stephen told me 'come and play, it's a laugh'," said the striker.

"After that he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I thought this is strange for me!

"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

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

"That's a bit different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

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

'Surreal Feeling

Along with the forward's six scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for the side, while Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game as a striker.

The team are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.

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

"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.

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

"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 English caps.

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

"Our group literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home.

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

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

We Will Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who secured the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.

"We scored one-nil ahead and had a