🔗 Share this article

How do you enhance a stellar experienced team that have claimed back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from 32 matches?

Sign a raft of former professionals that have performed at the top tier of club and global football as you target further trophies.

A Manchester club boasts an non-professional vets team with 9 former top-flight players in their current lineup.

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

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Division.

Their lineup this season includes nine former Premier League players, with a collective nearly 1,800 Premier League matches.

This elite roster also boasts 222 top division goals and 325 global appearances.

The squad feature one forward, who netted 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.

Wythenshawe's team for this season also includes former professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- top-flight players have claimed fifteen major honors and moved for combined transfer fees of around £123 million.

Famous Names and International Stars

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this season through close mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for Everton and even now attends their home games, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

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

"After that he told me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing 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 do?

"The people who turn up and see are pleased and to make a moment if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, he made his first game at defender.

"It's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

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

"That running is what I'm after. It's good fun."

Dreamlike' Scenario

In addition to the forward's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd hit five on his debut match and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

The team are leading of the Premier Division with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced ex- Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played 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 a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked the player.

"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.

"Our side competed well for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.

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

"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular fellas.

"Now we are eager for the return match."

We Will Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who won the Top Tier championship last season, along with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 ahead and had a