🔗 Share this article

How can you enhance a outstanding experienced squad who have secured consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty victories from 32 games?

Sign a collection of ex- pro players that have competed at the highest tier of club and global football as you target more silverware.

A Manchester side has an amateur veterans team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their present lineup.

222 Top Division Goals, 325 Global Appearances

Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are based in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Top Division.

Their roster this campaign features 9 former Premier League players, with a total over 1,800 elite matches.

The elite team also contains over 220 top division scores and 325 international appearances.

They include one forward, who scored thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for his former club after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga side SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home game against defending title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features ex- professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- top-flight players have claimed 15 big trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123m.

Well-Known Names and Global Stars

Ireland started turning out for the team during preseason this summer through good friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided game, to join in.

Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their strip.

"A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

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

"If you still love football and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The spectators who come and watch are pleased and to give someone's day if they see us competing there and to ask us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with structure of course."

So great is the bench strength at the club, he had his first game at defender.

"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep running.

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

'Surreal Experience

Along with the forward's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one match up front.

The team are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, faced former Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight matches.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," said the player.

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

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

"We competed well for a solid 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the journey home.

"They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a group of normal guys.

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

We Will Still Win the League'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Division title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"We scored one-nil ahead and had a