🔗 Share this article

How can you improve a outstanding experienced side who have secured consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double with 30 wins from 32 games?

Sign a collection of ex- pro players who have played at the top tier of club football and global soccer as you target more silverware.

A Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional veterans team with 9 former Premier League players in their active squad.

222 Premier League Goals, 325 Global Appearances

The team Vets Over 35s are based in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Top Division.

The squad list this season features nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 elite matches.

The elite squad also boasts 222 Premier League goals and over 320 global caps.

They feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in 117 appearances for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his first appearance for the team in their last home-field match against reigning champions their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's squad for this season also features former professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder 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 Premier League footballers have won fifteen major honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of around £123 million.

Well-Known Names and International Stars

Ireland started playing for the side during pre-season this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 Premier League games for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," said the striker.

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

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

"Those people who come and watch are happy and to make someone's day if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."

Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, Niasse had his first game at full-back.

"That's a little different but then, I love running 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.

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

'Surreal Experience

In addition to the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.

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

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in more than 200 Premier League games.

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

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

"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd English appearances.

"Our side held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

"Our group literally haven't stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.

"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular guys.

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

'We'll Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Top Division title last season, together with Paul Maguire.

"We went 1-0 up and had a