🔗 Share this article

How can you improve a stellar veteran side that have won consecutive titles, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty wins from 32 matches?

Recruit a collection of ex- pro players that have performed at the highest tier of club and global soccer as you target additional trophies.

One Greater Manchester side boasts an amateur veterans squad with 9 former Premier League players in their active squad.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps

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

Their squad list this campaign boasts 9 former top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.

The star-studded team also contains 222 top division scores and 325 international appearances.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match against reigning title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also includes ex- pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former top-flight footballers have secured fifteen big trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of approximately £123m.

Household Names and International Players

Ireland began playing for the team during pre-season this summer through close mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.

Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

"After that he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!

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

"Those fans who come and see are happy and to give someone's moment if they see us competing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, he had his debut at defender.

"That's a bit different but then, I love running and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

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

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

'Surreal Scenario

Along with the forward's six goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one game up front.

The team are top of the Top Division with three victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

One opponent, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.

He has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League matches.

"It was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," said the player.

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

"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has 60-odd England caps.

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

"We really haven't stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.

"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular guys.

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

'We'll Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"We scored one-nil ahead and had a