🔗 Share this article

What can you improve a stellar veteran squad that have won consecutive championships, including a double triumph with 30 wins from 32 matches?

Bring in a collection of former pro players that have performed at the elite tier of club and global soccer as you target further trophies.

One Greater Manchester club has an amateur vets squad with 9 former Premier League players in their active squad.

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

The team Vets Over 35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Top Division.

The lineup this campaign includes 9 former top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.

The high-profile roster also contains over 220 top division scores and over 320 international caps.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field match against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour opening period hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former top-flight footballers have won fifteen significant honors and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.

Famous Figures and Global Players

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team in pre-season this season through close friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.

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

"If you still love the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The people who come and watch are happy and to make someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

Such is the squad depth at the club, he made his debut at defender.

"It's a little different but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go 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 running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."

Dreamlike' Experience

Along with Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker.

The team are top of the Top Tier with three wins from three and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.

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

"The news was going round like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," remarked the player.

"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against him to be honest.

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

"We competed well for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

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

"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.

"Now we are eager for the second match."

'We'll Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team went 1-0 ahead and had a