🔗 Share this article

What can you improve a outstanding experienced team who have secured back-to-back titles, featuring a double triumph with thirty victories from thirty-two matches?

Recruit a collection of former pro players who have competed at the highest level of club and international football as you pursue more honors.

One Greater Manchester team boasts an non-professional veterans team with nine former Premier League footballers in their active roster.

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

The team Veterans Over-35s are based in south the city and compete in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Top Division.

The lineup this campaign boasts nine ex- top-flight players, with a combined 1,801 Premier League appearances.

The star-studded roster also boasts over 220 Premier League scores and over 320 international caps.

They feature one forward, who netted thirty-seven scores in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match versus reigning title holders their rivals and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour opening period triple.

Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also features ex- professionals such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have won fifteen big honors and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123 million.

Famous Figures and Global Players

Stephen Ireland started playing for the side during pre-season this summer through close mate and present team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish midfielder then asked additional ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in.

Former Senegalese forward Niasse, who scored 12 goals in sixty-five top-flight games for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against the opposition - who are located in the city and use an Blue training kit as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and play, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

"Then he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!

"When you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those people who turn up and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they see us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the strength in depth at the club, he made his first game at full-back.

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

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

"The movement is what I'm seeking. It's enjoyable."

Dreamlike' Feeling

In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a defender by position, scored a hat-trick in one match up front.

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

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics defender Maynor Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.

He has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in over two hundred Premier League games.

"It was going round like a rumor they had all these former top-flight stars," said the player.

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

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

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

"Our group literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home.

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

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

We Will Still Win the League'

The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Top Division title the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"We scored one-nil ahead and had a