🔗 Share this article

What do you improve a outstanding veteran squad that have secured consecutive championships, including a double triumph boasting thirty victories from thirty-two matches?

Bring in a group of ex- pro players who have played at the elite tier of club and international football as you target additional silverware.

A Greater Manchester club boasts an amateur vets squad with nine former Premier League players in their present roster.

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

The team Veterans Over-35s are situated in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.

The lineup this season boasts 9 former top-flight players, with a collective 1,801 top-flight matches.

This elite team also includes 222 Premier League scores and over 320 international appearances.

The squad feature one forward, who notched 37 goals in 117 appearances for his former club after signing for them for £9m from German league side Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's roster for this season also includes former pros such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League footballers have won fifteen major trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of approximately £123m.

Household Figures and International Stars

Ireland began playing for the team during pre-season this season through close mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegal forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"The fans who come and watch are pleased and to give someone's day if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, he had his debut at full-back.

"That's a little different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

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

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

Unreal Experience

In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

The team are leading of the Premier Division with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as featuring in more than 200 Premier League matches.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player.

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

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

"We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.

"We literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home.

"They 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 match."

We Will Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets side, who won the Premier Tier title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"We went one-nil ahead and had a