🔗 Share this article

What can you boost a outstanding experienced team who have claimed consecutive titles, including a league-cup double with 30 victories from thirty-two matches?

Sign a collection of former professionals that have competed at the top level of club football and global football as you pursue further trophies.

One Manchester club has an non-professional veterans team with 9 ex- Premier League players in their active squad.

222 Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps

The team Veterans Over-35s are based in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Division.

Their squad list this season boasts nine ex- top-flight players, with a total over 1,800 elite appearances.

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

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

He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - including a 32-minute opening period triple.

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

Together, the former Premier League footballers have claimed 15 significant honors and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123m.

Well-Known Names and Global Players

Ireland started playing for the team in preseason this summer through good mate and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to participate.

Former Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and still attends their home games, also had his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A mate Stephen told me 'join and play, it's a laugh'," commented the striker.

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

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

"Those fans who turn up and see are happy and to give someone's moment if they watch us competing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the bench strength at the club, he made his first game at full-back.

"It's a bit different but then, I love running 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 keep running.

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

Unreal Feeling

In addition to the forward's six goals on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one match up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with three wins from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over two hundred Premier League games.

"The news was spreading like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow.

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

"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.

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

"Our group literally have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mother and brother on the way home.

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

"Now we are eager for the second match."

We Will Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans team, who secured the Premier Division championship last season, along with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 up and had a