🔗 Share this article

What can you enhance a outstanding veteran team who have secured consecutive championships, including a double triumph boasting 30 victories from 32 games?

Sign a collection of ex- pro players who have performed at the elite tier of club and international football as you target more honors.

A Manchester team has an non-professional veterans team with 9 ex- top-flight footballers in their active lineup.

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

The team Vets Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Tier.

Their roster this season includes 9 ex- Premier League players, with a total 1,801 elite appearances.

This elite roster also includes 222 Premier League goals and over 320 global appearances.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 goals in 117 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.

The team for this season also includes ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- Premier League players have won fifteen big honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of approximately £123 million.

Well-Known Figures and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team in pre-season this summer through good friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.

Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for Everton and even now attends their home games, also made his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.

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

"If you still love football and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those spectators who come and see are happy and to give a moment if they see us playing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

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

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

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.

"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."

Unreal Scenario

Along with Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one match up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

He has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in over 200 Premier League games.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.

"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.

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

"Our side held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"Our group really have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.

"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.

"Now we are eager for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Take the League'

The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Division title last season, together with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a