🔗 Share this article

How do you improve a stellar veteran side who have secured back-to-back titles, featuring a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 games?

Recruit a collection of former professionals who have competed at the top level of club and global football as you aim for more silverware.

A Greater Manchester side has an non-professional veterans squad with 9 ex- Premier League players in their active roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 Global Caps

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

Their lineup this campaign features nine former Premier League players, with a combined 1,801 elite games.

This high-profile roster also contains 222 top division goals and over 320 global caps.

The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home match against defending title holders their rivals and scored all six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League footballers have secured fifteen big honors and transferred for total transfer sums of approximately £123m.

Well-Known Figures and International Stars

Ireland started turning out for the side during preseason this season through good friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored 12 goals in sixty-five Premier League games for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.

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

"Then he told me we were playing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I say this is wrong for me!

"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"Those spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."

So great is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he made his first game at defender.

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

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

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

'Surreal Scenario

In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match as a striker.

The team are top of the Top Division with three wins from three and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in over two hundred Premier League matches.

"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.

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

"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got 60-odd England appearances.

"Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

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

"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of normal guys.

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

'We'll Still Win the Title'

The manager manages the opposition veterans side, who won the Premier Tier title last season, along with his co-manager.

"We scored 1-0 up and had a