🔗 Share this article

How can you boost a excellent experienced side who have claimed back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Bring in a group of ex- pro players who have performed at the top level of club and global football as you aim for more silverware.

A Manchester side has an non-professional vets squad with 9 former top-flight footballers in their current roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Top Division.

Their lineup this campaign boasts nine former Premier League footballers, with a total 1,801 top-flight matches.

The high-profile squad also contains 222 top division scores and over 320 international appearances.

They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his debut for the team in their most recent home match versus defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - featuring a half-hour opening period hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features former professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former Premier League players have secured 15 big trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of approximately £123m.

Well-Known Figures and International Stars

Stephen Ireland began playing for the team in preseason this season through close friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided match, to join in.

Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.

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

"After that he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!

"When you still love football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"Those fans who come and see are happy and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, he had his debut at full-back.

"It's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

"I tell my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.

"The running is what I'm after. It's good fun."

'Surreal Scenario

In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a hat-trick in one match up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Tier with three victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for the opposition, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

He has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight games.

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

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

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

"We held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.

"We really haven't ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the journey home.

"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.

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

We Will Still Take the Title'

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

"Our team went one-nil up and had a