🔗 Share this article

What do you enhance a excellent veteran team that have secured consecutive titles, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty victories from 32 games?

Bring in a raft of ex- professionals that have played at the highest level of club and global soccer as you aim for additional silverware.

One Manchester club boasts an amateur veterans squad with 9 ex- Premier League players in their present roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are located in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Division.

The roster this season features 9 ex- top-flight footballers, with a combined over 1,800 Premier League appearances.

The elite squad also contains 222 Premier League scores and over 320 global appearances.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in 2012.

He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home match against defending title holders their rivals and netted all six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- Premier League players have secured 15 big trophies and transferred for combined transfer sums of about £123 million.

Household Figures and International Players

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during preseason this summer through close mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue training kit as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's good fun'," said the striker.

"After that he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is strange for me!

"If you still love the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"Those spectators who come and see are happy and to give a day if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.

"That's a little unusual but then, I love running and just go forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.

"I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

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

Unreal Experience

In addition to Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted eight in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred Premier League games.

"It was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," remarked Barrow.

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

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

"We held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.

"Our group literally have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the way home.

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

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

'We'll Still Take the League'

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

"We went one-nil ahead and had a