🔗 Share this article

What can you enhance a outstanding veteran team that have secured consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from 32 games?

Sign a collection of former professionals that have competed at the top tier of club football and international soccer as you aim for additional honors.

A Greater Manchester team fields an amateur veterans squad with 9 former top-flight footballers in their current roster.

222 Premier League Goals, 325 Global Appearances

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are situated in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Division.

The lineup this campaign features nine ex- Premier League footballers, with a combined 1,801 top-flight appearances.

This high-profile squad also includes over 220 top division scores and 325 international appearances.

They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home game versus defending title holders their rivals and netted all six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.

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

Together, the former top-flight players have won fifteen big honors and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123m.

Household Names and Global Players

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the team during preseason this summer through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then invited additional ex-pros, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side game, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

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

"Then he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is strange for me!

"If you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"The people who come and watch are pleased and to make someone's moment if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his first game at defender.

"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

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

Dreamlike' Feeling

Along with Cisse's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match as a striker.

Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Tier with three wins from three and a goal difference of +19.

One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, faced former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in more than 200 Premier League games.

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

"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.

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

"Our side held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group really haven't ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum 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 normal fellas.

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

'We'll Still Take the Title'

The manager coaches the opposition vets team, who secured the Premier Division title last season, along with his co-manager.

"Our team scored 1-0 ahead and had a