🔗 Share this article

How do you enhance a excellent experienced team that have won back-to-back championships, including a double triumph boasting 30 victories from thirty-two matches?

Sign a collection of former professionals who have played at the highest level of club and international football as you pursue more honors.

One Greater Manchester club fields an non-professional vets squad with 9 former Premier League players in their present squad.

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

The team Veterans Over 35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Division.

Their lineup this campaign boasts nine former top-flight footballers, with a combined over 1,800 elite matches.

The elite roster also contains over 220 Premier League scores and 325 global caps.

The squad include one forward, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for £9m from German league side SC Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his debut for the team in their most recent home match versus reigning champions their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - including a half-hour opening period triple.

The squad for this season also features former professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former top-flight players have won 15 major honors and moved for combined transfer sums of approximately £123m.

Well-Known Figures and Global Players

Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during preseason this season through good mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their home games, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's good fun'," said Niasse.

"Then he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I say this is wrong 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?

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

So great is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.

"It's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.

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

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

'Surreal Experience

Along with Cisse's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from three and a GD of +19.

One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for the opposition, faced former Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was.

He has appeared at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in over 200 Premier League matches.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.

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

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

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

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

"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.

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

We Will Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition veterans side, who won the Top Tier title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"We scored one-nil up and had a