🔗 Share this article

What do you boost a stellar veteran squad who have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with thirty wins from thirty-two games?

Recruit a collection of ex- pro players who have performed at the highest level of club and global football as you pursue additional trophies.

A Greater Manchester club boasts an non-professional veterans squad with nine former Premier League players in their current roster.

222 Top Division Scores, 325 International Appearances

The team Veterans Over-35s are located in southern the city and play in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Division.

The roster this campaign includes nine former top-flight players, with a total 1,801 elite games.

The high-profile team also contains over 220 Premier League scores and 325 international appearances.

They include one forward, who scored 37 scores in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his debut for the team in their last home game against defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's team for this season also features former pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- top-flight footballers have won 15 major honors and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.

Famous Figures and International Stars

Ireland started turning out for the side in preseason this summer through close mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.

Former Senegalese forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their strip.

"A friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is strange for me!

"When you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"Those fans who turn up and watch are happy and to give someone's day if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he made his first game at full-back.

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

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

"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."

Unreal Experience

Along with Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game up front.

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

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in over 200 Premier League games.

"The news was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked Barrow.

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

"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 England caps.

"Our side competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

"We literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the journey home.

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

"Now we are eager for the return fixture."

'We'll Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets side, who secured the Top Division title last season, along with his co-manager.

"Our team went 1-0 up and had a