Meet the Sunday Division Squad Featuring Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Games
What can you boost a excellent veteran team that have claimed back-to-back championships, including a league-cup double with 30 wins from thirty-two matches?
Sign a group of ex- pro players that have performed at the elite level of club football and global soccer as you pursue further trophies.
One Greater Manchester side has an non-professional vets squad with 9 former Premier League footballers in their present lineup.
Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Appearances
The team Vets Over-35s are based in south the city and compete in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Division.
The squad list this campaign includes 9 ex- top-flight players, with a combined nearly 1,800 elite games.
The star-studded roster also includes over 220 top division goals and over 320 international appearances.
The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 games for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league club SC Freiburg in 2012.
He had his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two win - including a half-hour first-half triple.
Wythenshawe's team for this season also includes former pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Collectively, the former top-flight players have claimed 15 significant honors and transferred for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million.
Well-Known Names and Global Players
Ireland started turning out for the side in pre-season this season through good friend and current team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to participate.
Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against the opposition - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.
"My mate Stephen told me 'join and play, it's good fun'," said the striker.
"After that he informed me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I thought this is wrong for me!
"If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?
"Those fans who come and see 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 somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course."
So great is the strength in depth at Wythenshawe, he made his debut at defender.
"That's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running.
"The running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."
'Surreal Experience
Along with the forward's six scores on his first game, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his debut match and Lescott, a defender by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.
The team are top of the Premier Division with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of +19.
One opponent, thirty-eight, who plays on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old son who Emile Heskey was.
He has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than two hundred top-flight games.
"It was going round like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," said Barrow.
"I felt I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got 60-odd England appearances.
"We held our own for a good 20 mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.
"We really have not stopped talking about it - I was calling my mother and sibling on the way home.
"They were all friendly, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a group of normal guys.
"Now we can't wait for the return fixture."
'We'll Still Win the Title'
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets team, who won the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire.
"We scored one-nil up and had a