🔗 Share this article

What can you boost a excellent experienced side that have secured consecutive titles, including a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Recruit a raft of ex- professionals that have competed at the top tier of club football and international soccer as you pursue additional silverware.

One Greater Manchester team boasts an amateur veterans team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their present roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 Global Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Tier.

The squad list this season features 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 Premier League appearances.

This elite team also boasts 222 top division scores and 325 global caps.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 goals in 117 games for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two win - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features former professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back 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 big trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.

Well-Known Names and International Stars

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side in preseason this season through close friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A mate Stephen told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," said the striker.

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

"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those fans who come and watch are happy and to make someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at full-back.

"It's a bit different but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

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

Unreal Feeling

In addition to the forward's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game up front.

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

Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League games.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.

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

"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 English caps.

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

"We literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the journey home.

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

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

'We'll Still Take the League'

The manager manages the opposition veterans team, who won the Top Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.

"We scored one-nil ahead and had a