🔗 Share this article

How can you enhance a outstanding experienced side that have won back-to-back championships, including a double triumph boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Recruit a collection of ex- pro players who have played at the top level of club football and global soccer as you aim for further silverware.

One Manchester club fields an non-professional vets team with 9 former top-flight footballers in their current lineup.

222 Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances

The team Veterans Over-35s are located in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.

Their lineup this season includes nine former top-flight footballers, with a total 1,801 top-flight appearances.

The high-profile squad also contains over 220 Premier League scores and 325 international appearances.

They include one forward, who scored thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his debut for the team in their last home-field game against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two win - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

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

Together, the ex- Premier League footballers have claimed fifteen significant trophies and moved for total transfer sums of about £123 million.

Famous Figures and International Players

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the team in pre-season this season through good friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's a laugh'," said the striker.

"Then he informed me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is strange for me!

"When you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The people who come and see are pleased and to make a day if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, Niasse made his debut at defender.

"It's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he said.

"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

"That running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."

'Surreal Feeling

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

Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred top-flight matches.

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

"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.

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

"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.

"We literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.

"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular guys.

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

We Will Still Win the League'

The manager manages the opposition veterans team, who won the Top Division championship last season, along with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 up and had a