🔗 Share this article

What do you boost a outstanding experienced team that have won consecutive championships, including a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two games?

Sign a raft of ex- pro players that have performed at the top level of club football and international football as you aim for more trophies.

One Manchester team fields an non-professional veterans squad with nine former top-flight players in their present roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 International Appearances

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Tier.

Their lineup this season boasts 9 former top-flight footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 top-flight appearances.

This star-studded squad also contains over 220 top division goals and 325 international caps.

They include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.

He made his debut for the team in their last home game versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.

The roster for this season also features former pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have claimed fifteen significant honors and transferred for combined transfer fees of about £123 million.

Household Names and International Stars

Ireland began turning out for the team in pre-season this season through good friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.

Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who netted twelve scores in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their strip.

"A mate Stephen told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," said the striker.

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

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

"Those fans who come and watch are pleased and to give a moment if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

Such is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse made his first game at full-back.

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

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

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

Unreal Scenario

Along with the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game up front.

The team are leading of the Premier Division with three wins from three and a goal difference of +19.

One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.

He has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than 200 top-flight matches.

"The news was going round like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," said Barrow.

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

"Also Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd England caps.

"We held our own for a solid 20 minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.

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

"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of normal fellas.

"Now we are eager for the return match."

'We'll Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who secured the Top Division title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"We went one-nil up and had a