🔗 Share this article

What do you boost a outstanding veteran team that have secured consecutive titles, including a league-cup double with thirty wins from thirty-two matches?

Recruit a group of former professionals that have performed at the highest tier of club and global football as you aim for additional silverware.

One Manchester club fields an amateur veterans team with nine ex- Premier League players in their present lineup.

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

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

The roster this season includes 9 ex- top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 elite appearances.

This elite roster also boasts 222 top division scores and over 320 global caps.

They include one forward, who scored 37 goals in over 100 games for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six goals in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's squad for this season also includes ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League players have secured fifteen big honors and transferred for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million.

Household Names and Global Stars

Ireland began turning out for the side during preseason this summer through close friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked additional ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to join in.

Former Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their strip.

"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.

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

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

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

Such is the squad depth at the club, Niasse made his debut at full-back.

"It's a bit different but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said.

"I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

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

Dreamlike' Scenario

In addition to the forward's six scores on his first game, Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one match up front.

The team are top of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

One opponent, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.

He has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred Premier League matches.

"The news was spreading like a rumor they had all these former top-flight stars," remarked the player.

"I think I was a bit awestruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.

"Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has over 60 English caps.

"Our side competed well for a good 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.

"We literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mum and sibling 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'll Still Win the League'

The manager coaches the Collegiate vets team, who won the Premier Division title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"We went one-nil ahead and had a