🔗 Share this article

What do you improve a stellar experienced side that have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with 30 wins from thirty-two games?

Sign a group of former pro players who have competed at the highest tier of club football and international soccer as you pursue additional honors.

A Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional vets squad with nine former top-flight players in their present lineup.

222 Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances

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

The lineup this season features 9 former Premier League footballers, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight games.

The high-profile roster also contains 222 Premier League goals and over 320 global caps.

The squad feature one forward, who notched 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game versus defending title holders their rivals and scored all six goals in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.

The team for this season also includes former pros such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the former top-flight players have claimed 15 big honors and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123 million.

Well-Known Names and International Players

Ireland started turning out for the team during preseason this season through good friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to join in.

Former Senegalese forward Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 Premier League games for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance against the opposition - 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 enjoyable'," commented the striker.

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

"When you still love football and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"Those spectators who come and watch are happy and to make a day if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."

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

"It's a bit different but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.

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

"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."

Unreal Experience

Along with Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

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

He has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.

"It was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight stars," said the player.

"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest.

"Even Heskey came on and he's got over 60 English caps.

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

"Our group literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.

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

"Now we are eager for the second match."

'We'll Still Take the League'

The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Top Tier title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team scored one-nil up and had a