🔗 Share this article

How do you enhance a stellar experienced side who have claimed back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two matches?

Sign a raft of ex- pro players that have performed at the top level of club football and international soccer as you aim for additional honors.

A Manchester club fields an non-professional vets team with nine former Premier League footballers in their present lineup.

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

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

The squad list this campaign boasts 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 elite matches.

This elite roster also contains 222 top division scores and 325 global appearances.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the former top-flight players have secured fifteen significant trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123 million.

Well-Known Figures and Global Players

Ireland began playing for the team in preseason this summer through close friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for Everton and still goes to their home games, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.

"A mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said the striker.

"Then he told me we were playing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!

"When you still enjoy the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"Those fans who turn up and watch are happy and to give a day if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at full-back.

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

"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.

"That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."

Unreal Scenario

Along with the forward's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.

The team are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in over 200 top-flight matches.

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

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

"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has 60-odd English caps.

"We held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.

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

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

'We'll Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Premier Division title last season, along with his co-manager.

"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a