🔗 Share this article

How can you enhance a outstanding veteran team who have claimed consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 matches?

Sign a collection of ex- professionals who have competed at the elite level of club football and global soccer as you target additional silverware.

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

222 Premier League Scores, 325 Global Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are based in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Division.

The roster this season features nine ex- Premier League players, with a combined over 1,800 Premier League appearances.

The star-studded squad also contains over 220 top division goals and over 320 global appearances.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.

He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match versus defending champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.

The squad for this season also includes former pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League footballers have secured fifteen major honors and moved for combined transfer sums of approximately £123 million.

Household Figures and International Players

Ireland began turning out for the side during pre-season this summer through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

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

"Then he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I say this is strange for me!

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

"The people who turn up and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse had his first game at full-back.

"It's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - 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 continue running.

"That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."

Unreal Scenario

Along with the forward's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has netted eight in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one game as a striker.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.

One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over 200 Premier League games.

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

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

"Even Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd England caps.

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

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

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

"Now we are eager for the second fixture."

We Will Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who won the Premier Division title last season, along with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 up and had a