🔗 Share this article

How do you boost a stellar veteran team that have secured consecutive titles, including a double triumph boasting thirty victories from thirty-two games?

Recruit a collection of ex- pro players that have competed at the highest level of club and international soccer as you pursue further silverware.

One Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional vets squad with nine former top-flight footballers in their active squad.

222 Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps

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

Their roster this season features 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 elite games.

The elite team also boasts over 220 top division scores and 325 global caps.

They feature one forward, who scored thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home game against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

The team for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the former Premier League players have secured fifteen major trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123 million.

Well-Known Names and Global Stars

Ireland began playing for the team during pre-season this summer through close mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and still goes to their home games, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.

"A mate Stephen said 'join and play, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.

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

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

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

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

"That's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he added.

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

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

'Surreal Feeling

Along with Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game as a striker.

The team are leading of the Top Division with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.

He has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred Premier League games.

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

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

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

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

"We really haven't stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home.

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

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

'We'll Still Take the Title'

The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Top Division title last season, together with Paul Maguire.

"We went one-nil ahead and had a