🔗 Share this article

What do you improve a excellent experienced squad who have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double with 30 victories from 32 games?

Bring in a group of ex- professionals who have played at the highest tier of club football and international soccer as you target more trophies.

A Manchester side has an amateur veterans team with 9 former top-flight footballers in their active roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 Global Appearances

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Tier.

The lineup this season features 9 ex- Premier League players, with a collective over 1,800 Premier League appearances.

This elite roster also contains 222 top division goals and 325 global caps.

They include one forward, who notched 37 scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field match against defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

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

Collectively, the ex- Premier League players have secured fifteen significant trophies and moved for total transfer fees of about £123m.

Household Figures and International Stars

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the team during preseason this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for Everton and still goes to their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," said the striker.

"After that he told me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is strange for me!

"When you still love football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?

"The people who turn up and watch are pleased and to make someone's day if they see us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at full-back.

"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy 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 attacking.

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

Dreamlike' Experience

Along with the forward's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut match and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with three wins from three and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

He has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in more than 200 Premier League games.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," said the player.

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

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

"We competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.

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

"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.

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

'We'll Still Take the League'

The manager manages the Collegiate vets team, who secured the Top Division championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"Our team went 1-0 up and had a