🔗 Share this article

How can you improve a stellar veteran side who have secured consecutive titles, including a league-cup double with 30 wins from thirty-two matches?

Sign a collection of ex- pro players that have competed at the highest tier of club football and global soccer as you pursue additional trophies.

One Greater Manchester side has an amateur veterans squad with 9 ex- top-flight players in their present roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, 325 Global Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Division.

Their squad list this campaign includes 9 former top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight appearances.

This elite team also boasts over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 global appearances.

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

Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home game versus defending title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a 6-2 win - including a half-hour opening period triple.

The squad for this season also includes former pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former Premier League players have won fifteen major trophies and moved for combined transfer fees of about £123m.

Well-Known Names and International Players

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team in preseason this summer through close friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.

Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"A friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were facing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!

"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?

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

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

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

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

"That movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."

Unreal Feeling

Along with Cisse's six scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd scored 5 on his debut match and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has appeared at two World Cups for his country, in addition to featuring in over 200 top-flight games.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.

"I felt I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest.

"Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 England appearances.

"We competed well for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

"We literally have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home.

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

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

We Will Still Take the League'

The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Top Division title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"Our team scored 1-0 ahead and had a