🔗 Share this article

How do you boost a excellent veteran team that have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Bring in a raft of former professionals who have competed at the highest tier of club football and global soccer as you pursue more silverware.

A Greater Manchester team has an amateur vets team with nine ex- Premier League players in their present roster.

222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances

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

Their roster this campaign boasts nine ex- top-flight players, with a total 1,801 top-flight games.

This high-profile team also boasts 222 top division goals and 325 international appearances.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012.

He had his debut for the team in their most recent home-field game against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.

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

Collectively, the former top-flight footballers have won fifteen major trophies and moved for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.

Household Names and International Stars

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this season through good friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.

Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and have a game, it's a laugh'," commented Niasse.

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

"When you still love the game and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"The fans who come and see are pleased and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the joy of us getting a place we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

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

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

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

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

Dreamlike' Feeling

In addition to the forward's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one game up front.

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

One opponent, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

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

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

"I felt I was a bit awestruck facing him to be honest.

"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got over 60 English caps.

"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.

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

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

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

We Will Still Win the League'

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

"We went one-nil up and had a