🔗 Share this article

How can you improve a excellent experienced side who have won back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double with 30 wins from thirty-two games?

Recruit a collection of ex- professionals who have played at the top level of club and global soccer as you aim for more silverware.

A Greater Manchester club has an non-professional vets squad with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their active squad.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps

Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are situated in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Top Division.

Their squad list this campaign features nine ex- Premier League footballers, with a collective 1,801 top-flight appearances.

This star-studded squad also includes 222 top division scores and over 320 international caps.

They include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for his former club after signing for them for £9m from German league club Freiburg in 2012.

He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field game against reigning champions their rivals and netted all six scores in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick.

Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also features former professionals such as English and Anfield striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the former Premier League footballers have secured 15 major trophies and moved for combined transfer fees of around £123 million.

Famous Figures and International Players

Ireland started playing for the side in preseason this summer through close friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.

Ex- Senegal striker Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Everton warm-up gear as their strip.

"My friend Stephen said 'join and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.

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

"If you still enjoy football and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"Those fans who turn up and see are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the bench strength at the club, he made his first game at full-back.

"That's a little unusual 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 hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking.

"That movement is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."

Unreal Scenario

Along with the forward's 6 goals on his first game, Stephen Ireland has scored 8 in three games for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a triple in one game up front.

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

One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.

He has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than two hundred Premier League matches.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.

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

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

"We held our own for a good 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was hard.

"Our group literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the way home.

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

"Now we are eager for the second fixture."

We Will Still Take the Title'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition vets side, who secured the Premier Tier championship last season, along with Paul Maguire.

"Our team scored one-nil ahead and had a