🔗 Share this article

How can you improve a excellent veteran squad that have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a double triumph with 30 wins from 32 games?

Sign a group of former professionals who have played at the elite tier of club football and global soccer as you target more silverware.

A Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional vets squad with nine former top-flight players in their present squad.

222 Premier League Scores, 325 Global Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are situated in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Tier.

Their squad list this season includes 9 former Premier League players, with a total over 1,800 Premier League matches.

This elite roster also contains over 220 top division scores and over 320 international caps.

They include one forward, who netted 37 goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining them for £9m from German league side Freiburg in 2012.

Cisse had his first appearance for the team in their last home-field match versus reigning champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 win - including a 32-minute first-half triple.

The team for this campaign also features former professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

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

Well-Known Names and International Stars

Stephen Ireland started playing for the side in pre-season this summer through close friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to join in.

Ex- Senegalese striker Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 Premier League games for Everton and even now attends their home games, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their strip.

"A friend Stephen said 'join and have a game, it's a laugh'," said the striker.

"After that he told me we were facing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I say this is wrong for me!

"If you still love football and you know you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those fans who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's moment if they see us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."

Such is the squad depth at the club, he had his debut at defender.

"That's a little different but then, I enjoy running and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added.

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

"The movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."

'Surreal Experience

Along with the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted eight in three games for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one match up front.

The team are leading of the Top Tier with 3 wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred Premier League games.

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

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

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

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

"We really have not stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home.

"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of regular fellas.

"Now we are eager for the return match."

We Will Still Win the Title'

Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets side, who won the Top Division title last season, together with Paul Maguire.

"We scored 1-0 ahead and had a