🔗 Share this article

How can you enhance a excellent veteran team that have won back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 games?

Recruit a group of ex- pro players that have performed at the top tier of club football and global soccer as you pursue additional trophies.

A Manchester club fields an amateur vets team with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their present squad.

222 Top Division Scores, 325 Global Appearances

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are situated in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Tier.

The squad list this campaign includes 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a total over 1,800 top-flight appearances.

The high-profile squad also boasts over 220 top division goals and 325 global appearances.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field game against defending title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour first-half triple.

The roster for this campaign also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight players have won fifteen significant trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of approximately £123m.

Well-Known Names and International Stars

Stephen Ireland started playing for the side during pre-season this summer through close friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side match, to participate.

Former Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in the city and use an Everton training kit as their strip.

"A mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.

"Then he told me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is strange for me!

"When you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"The fans who turn up and see are happy and to make a day if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at defender.

"That's a bit unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

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

'Surreal Scenario

Along with the forward's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

The team are top of the Premier Division with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight matches.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had all these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.

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

"Also Heskey got on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.

"Our side competed well for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"Our group really have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home.

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

"Now we are eager for the second fixture."

We Will Still Take the Title'

The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"Our team scored one-nil up and had a