🔗 Share this article

What do you boost a excellent experienced side that have won consecutive championships, including a double triumph with 30 victories from thirty-two matches?

Bring in a raft of ex- pro players that have performed at the top tier of club football and international football as you aim for further honors.

A Greater Manchester side boasts an amateur veterans team with 9 ex- top-flight players in their active squad.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 Global Appearances

The team Veterans Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Tier.

Their squad list this campaign includes 9 former Premier League footballers, with a combined over 1,800 top-flight games.

The elite roster also contains over 220 top division scores and 325 global appearances.

The squad feature one forward, who netted 37 goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match against reigning title holders their rivals and scored all six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's team for this season also includes former pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former Premier League players have won 15 major honors and moved for combined transfer sums of about £123m.

Famous Names and Global Players

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side during pre-season this season through close friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other ex-pros, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side game, to join in.

Former Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

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

"Then he told me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!

"When you still love the game and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose?

"Those people who come and watch are pleased and to make a day if they watch us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us getting somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse had his debut at full-back.

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

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

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

'Surreal Scenario

Along with Cisse's six goals on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a defender by position, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker.

The team are top of the Top Tier with 3 wins from three and a GD of +19.

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

He has appeared at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred top-flight matches.

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

"I think I was a little starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

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

"We held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

"Our group really haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.

"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.

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

We Will Still Take the Title'

The manager manages the opposition vets team, who secured the Top Division championship last season, together with his co-manager.

"We scored 1-0 up and had a