🔗 Share this article

What can you enhance a stellar veteran team that have won consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from thirty-two matches?

Sign a raft of ex- professionals who have competed at the elite tier of club football and international soccer as you target additional honors.

One Manchester team boasts an amateur vets team with 9 former top-flight players in their active roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are located in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Tier.

Their lineup this season includes 9 former top-flight players, with a total nearly 1,800 Premier League appearances.

The high-profile roster also contains over 220 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league side SC Freiburg in 2012.

He had his debut for the team in their most recent home match against defending title holders their rivals and netted all six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight players have claimed 15 major trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of approximately £123 million.

Famous Names and International Players

Ireland started turning out for the team in pre-season this summer through close mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League games for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," said Niasse.

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

"If you still love football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"Those spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's day if they watch us playing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at defender.

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

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

"The running is what I'm after. It's good fun."

'Surreal Experience

Along with the forward's six scores on his first game, Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for the side, while Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one match up front.

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

One opponent, 38, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in more than 200 top-flight games.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.

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

"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got 60-odd England appearances.

"We held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.

"We literally haven't ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.

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

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

We Will Still Take the League'

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

"We went 1-0 up and had a