🔗 Share this article

What do you improve a outstanding experienced side that have won back-to-back titles, including a league-cup double with 30 wins from thirty-two games?

Sign a group of ex- professionals that have performed at the highest level of club football and international football as you aim for additional honors.

One Manchester club fields an amateur vets team with nine ex- Premier League players in their active roster.

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

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are located in south the city and play in the Cheshire Vets League Top Tier.

Their lineup this campaign features nine former Premier League footballers, with a collective 1,801 top-flight matches.

This high-profile roster also includes over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 global appearances.

They feature one forward, who scored 37 scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse had his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's team for this season also features ex- pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- top-flight footballers have secured fifteen big honors and moved for total transfer sums of about £123 million.

Household Names and International Stars

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side during preseason this season through good friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then asked additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League games for Everton and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Everton training kit as their strip.

"My mate Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said the striker.

"Then he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is strange for me!

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

"The people who turn up and watch are happy and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

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

"That's a bit different but then, I love 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 movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."

Dreamlike' Scenario

In addition to the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker.

The team are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.

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

Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as playing in over 200 Premier League games.

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

"I think I was a little awestruck facing him to be honest.

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

"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was tough.

"We really haven't ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the journey home.

"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys.

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

We Will Still Win the Title'

The manager manages the opposition vets side, who secured the Top Tier title the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire.

"We scored 1-0 up and had a