🔗 Share this article

What can you improve a excellent experienced squad that have won consecutive championships, including a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 matches?

Bring in a raft of former pro players who have competed at the elite tier of club and global football as you pursue more honors.

A Manchester club boasts an amateur veterans squad with 9 former Premier League footballers in their present roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps

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

Their squad list this season boasts nine former top-flight players, with a total 1,801 top-flight matches.

This high-profile roster also contains over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global appearances.

They include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game versus reigning title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two win - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick.

The squad for this campaign also features former pros such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former Premier League footballers have secured fifteen major trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of around £123m.

Household Figures and International Stars

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team in preseason this summer through close friend and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to participate.

Ex- Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five Premier League games for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance versus the opposition - who are based in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A mate Stephen Ireland told me 'come and play, it's a laugh'," said the striker.

"After that he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is strange for me!

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

"The people who turn up and watch are happy and to give a day if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

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

"It's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

"The movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."

Dreamlike' Feeling

In addition to Cisse's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted eight in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd scored 5 on his debut match and Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.

The team are top of the Top Tier with three victories from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Latics full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred top-flight games.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," remarked Barrow.

"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.

"Even Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd English caps.

"Our side held our own for a good 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.

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

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

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

'We'll Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans team, who won the Premier Division title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team scored 1-0 up and had a