🔗 Share this article

How can you boost a outstanding experienced team who have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty victories from 32 matches?

Sign a group of ex- professionals who have performed at the elite tier of club football and global soccer as you target more silverware.

A Greater Manchester side has an amateur vets squad with 9 former top-flight players in their present squad.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 Global Appearances

The team Vets Over-35s are based in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Division.

Their squad list this campaign includes nine ex- top-flight footballers, with a combined over 1,800 top-flight appearances.

This elite roster also includes over 220 top division scores and over 320 global appearances.

The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 scores in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.

He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game against defending champions their rivals and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes ex- pros such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former top-flight players have won fifteen major honors and moved for total transfer fees of around £123m.

Well-Known Figures and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this season through good friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.

Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 top-flight games for Everton and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Blue training kit as their strip.

"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and play, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Blue kits - I thought this is strange for me!

"If you still love the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"The people who turn up and see are happy and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the joy of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

Such is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at full-back.

"It's a bit different but then, I enjoy running and just move 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 continue attacking.

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

Unreal Feeling

Along with the forward's six goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored 5 on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a triple in one game up front.

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

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

He has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than 200 top-flight games.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight players," remarked Barrow.

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

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

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

"We really have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.

"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.

"Now we are eager for the return match."

We Will Still Win the League'

The manager manages the Collegiate veterans side, who won the Top Division title last season, along with Paul Maguire.

"We scored one-nil ahead and had a