🔗 Share this article

What do you enhance a stellar veteran side who have secured consecutive championships, including a league-cup double boasting thirty victories from thirty-two matches?

Recruit a group of former pro players who have competed at the highest tier of club football and global soccer as you target more trophies.

A Manchester side fields an non-professional veterans team with nine former top-flight players in their current roster.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Goals, 325 Global Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are located in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Top Division.

The roster this season features nine former top-flight players, with a total 1,801 Premier League matches.

This star-studded team also contains 222 Premier League goals and over 320 global caps.

The squad include one forward, who notched 37 scores in 117 games for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for the team in their most recent home match versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute first-half triple.

The squad for this season also features former pros such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

In total, the ex- top-flight footballers have claimed fifteen big trophies and moved for total transfer fees of approximately £123 million.

Well-Known Names and Global Players

Ireland began turning out for the side in preseason this summer through good mate and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"My mate Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.

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

"When you still love football and you know you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The people who turn up and watch are pleased and to give a moment if they see us playing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."

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

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

"I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking.

"The running is what I'm seeking. It's good fun."

Dreamlike' Feeling

In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

The team are top of the Premier Division with three wins from 3 and a GD of plus nineteen.

One opponent, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

He has played at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred top-flight matches.

"It was spreading like wildfire they had all these former top-flight stars," said the player.

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

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

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

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

"The opponents were all friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of normal guys.

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

We Will Still Win the Title'

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

"We scored one-nil up and had a