🔗 Share this article

What can you enhance a excellent experienced squad who have won consecutive titles, featuring a double triumph boasting 30 victories from 32 matches?

Sign a group of former pro players who have competed at the elite tier of club and global football as you target further honors.

One Greater Manchester club boasts an amateur vets squad with nine former Premier League players in their current lineup.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 International Appearances

Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets League Top Tier.

The squad list this campaign includes nine ex- Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 elite matches.

This elite roster also includes over 220 top division goals and 325 international caps.

They include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league side Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home game versus reigning champions their rivals and netted all six goals in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.

The squad for this campaign also features ex- pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League players have claimed 15 significant honors and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123m.

Well-Known Names and Global Players

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the team during pre-season this summer through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.

Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and still attends their home games, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.

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

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

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

"Those fans who come and see are pleased and to give someone's 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 enjoy football, with organisation of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, he had his first game at full-back.

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

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

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

Unreal Experience

In addition to Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one match up front.

The team are top of the Top Division with 3 wins from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred top-flight games.

"The news was going round like wildfire they had these former top-flight stars," remarked Barrow.

"I think I was a little starstruck playing against him to be honest.

"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England caps.

"We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

"Our group really haven't ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the way home.

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

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

'We'll Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a