🔗 Share this article

What can you improve a outstanding experienced team who have won back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph with 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Recruit a collection of former professionals who have competed at the highest level of club football and global soccer as you target additional honors.

One Greater Manchester team boasts an amateur veterans squad with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their active squad.

222 Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are based in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Tier.

The squad list this season boasts 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a combined 1,801 Premier League appearances.

The elite squad also includes 222 Premier League scores and over 320 global caps.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their last home match against reigning title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two win - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

The team for this season also includes former pros such as English and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have secured 15 major trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of around £123 million.

Well-Known Names and Global Players

Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this summer through good mate and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

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

"After that he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is wrong for me!

"If you still love the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those people who turn up and see are happy and to give a day if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

Such is the strength in depth at the club, he made his first game at full-back.

"That's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy running and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

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

'Surreal Feeling

Along with the forward's six goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for the opposition, faced former Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

He has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.

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

"Also Heskey got on and he's got over 60 England appearances.

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

"We literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.

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

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

We Will Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who secured the Top Tier championship last season, together with Paul Maguire.

"We scored 1-0 up and had a