🔗 Share this article

What do you boost a outstanding experienced squad that have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with thirty victories from thirty-two games?

Bring in a group of ex- pro players that have competed at the top tier of club and global football as you aim for further trophies.

A Manchester team boasts an amateur vets squad with nine ex- top-flight players in their current squad.

222 Top Division Scores, 325 Global Caps

The team Veterans Over-35s are located in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets Division Premier Tier.

Their roster this season boasts 9 former Premier League footballers, with a combined over 1,800 top-flight matches.

This star-studded squad also includes over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 global caps.

They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in 2012.

He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match against defending champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour first-half triple.

Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also includes former professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former top-flight footballers have claimed fifteen major trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123 million.

Household Figures and Global Stars

Ireland began turning out for the team during pre-season this summer through close mate and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League games for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"My friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and play, it's good fun'," said the striker.

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

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

"Those people who come and see are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."

Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at defender.

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

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

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

'Surreal Feeling

In addition to the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit five on his debut match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one game up front.

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

One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

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

"It was going round like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked Barrow.

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

"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd England caps.

"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard.

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

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

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

We Will Still Win the Title'

The manager manages the opposition vets team, who won the Top Division championship last season, together with his co-manager.

"We scored one-nil up and had a