🔗 Share this article

What do you improve a excellent experienced team who have secured consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with thirty victories from 32 games?

Bring in a group of ex- professionals who have competed at the elite level of club football and international soccer as you aim for more trophies.

One Manchester club boasts an amateur vets team with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their current roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances

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

Their squad list this campaign boasts nine ex- top-flight players, with a collective nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.

The high-profile roster also contains over 220 Premier League goals and 325 global appearances.

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

He had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home match against defending champions their rivals and scored all six goals in a six-two victory - including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features former professionals such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- Premier League players have won 15 major honors and moved for total transfer fees of approximately £123m.

Well-Known Names and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland began playing for the team during preseason this season through good mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly small-sided match, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League games for Everton and even now attends their home games, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"A mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.

"Then he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me!

"When you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"Those spectators who come and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

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

"That's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just go 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 running.

"That running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."

'Surreal Experience

Along with the forward's 6 scores on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one game as a striker.

The team are leading of the Premier Tier with three wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

He has played at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in over 200 Premier League games.

"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.

"I felt I was a bit awestruck facing him to be honest.

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

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

"We really have not ceased talking about it - I was calling 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 bunch of regular fellas.

"Now we are eager for the return match."

We Will Still Win the League'

The manager manages the Collegiate vets team, who won the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a