🔗 Share this article

How do you improve a outstanding veteran team that have secured consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty wins from 32 matches?

Bring in a collection of ex- professionals who have played at the highest level of club and global soccer as you pursue further honors.

One Greater Manchester side boasts an amateur vets team with nine ex- top-flight footballers in their active lineup.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are based in south the city and play in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Division.

Their roster this season boasts 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 Premier League matches.

The star-studded squad also includes over 220 top division goals and 325 international caps.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home-field game against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's team for this season also features former professionals such as England 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.

In total, the former Premier League players have won fifteen major trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123m.

Well-Known Figures and International Players

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this season through good mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is strange for me!

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

"The spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to make someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

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

"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running.

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

Unreal Experience

Along with Cisse's six scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match as a striker.

The team are top of the Top Division with three victories from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

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

Figueroa has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred top-flight games.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had all these former top-flight stars," said the player.

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

"Even Heskey got on and he's has 60-odd English caps.

"We held our own for a good 20 minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"We literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.

"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular guys.

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

'We'll Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Top Division championship last season, together with his co-manager.

"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a