🔗 Share this article

What can you boost a excellent experienced team who have secured back-to-back titles, including a double triumph boasting thirty wins from thirty-two games?

Recruit a collection of ex- professionals who have played at the highest level of club and international football as you aim for further silverware.

One Greater Manchester club boasts an amateur veterans team with 9 former Premier League players in their present lineup.

222 Top Division Scores, 325 Global Caps

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

The lineup this season boasts 9 former Premier League footballers, with a combined nearly 1,800 top-flight matches.

The star-studded squad also boasts over 220 Premier League scores and 325 international caps.

They include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home-field game against defending title holders their rivals and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two win - including a 32-minute opening period triple.

The team for this season also includes former professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight title victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- top-flight players have secured fifteen big honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of about £123m.

Famous Figures and Global Players

Stephen Ireland began playing for the team during pre-season this summer through close mate and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate.

Former Senegalese striker Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve goals in 65 top-flight matches for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen said 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," said Niasse.

"After that he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!

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

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

So great is the strength in depth at the club, he made his first game at defender.

"It's a bit unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move inside - 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 after. It's good fun."

'Surreal Experience

In addition to the forward's 6 scores on his first game, Stephen Ireland has netted eight in 3 appearances for the side, while George Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, 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 plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young boy who Emile Heskey was.

He has played at two World Cups for his country, in addition to playing in over 200 Premier League matches.

"It was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," said the player.

"I felt I was a little awestruck facing him to be honest.

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

"We competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

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

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

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

We Will Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate vets side, who won the Top Tier title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"We scored one-nil up and had a