🔗 Share this article

What can you improve a stellar experienced side who have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a double triumph boasting thirty wins from thirty-two games?

Sign a raft of former professionals that have played at the top tier of club and international football as you aim for additional honors.

A Greater Manchester team has an amateur vets squad with 9 ex- Premier League players in their present lineup.

Two Hundred Twenty-Two Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps

The team Vets Over 35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Division.

Their squad list this season includes nine ex- Premier League players, with a total 1,801 top-flight games.

The elite squad also boasts 222 top division scores and 325 international caps.

They feature Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 scores in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from German league side Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home match against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple.

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

Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have won 15 significant trophies and transferred for total transfer fees of about £123 million.

Household Figures and Global Stars

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this summer through good friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored twelve scores in sixty-five top-flight games for the Toffees and still goes to their home games, also had his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.

"A mate Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented the striker.

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

"If you still enjoy the game and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do?

"Those people who come and watch are pleased and to give a day if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with structure of course."

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

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

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

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

Dreamlike' Scenario

In addition to the forward's six goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with 3 victories from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in over two hundred Premier League games.

"The news was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," said the player.

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

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

"We held our own for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player sent off 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 friendly, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular guys.

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

We Will Still Take the League'

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

"Our team scored 1-0 ahead and had a