🔗 Share this article Meet this Weekend Division Club Featuring 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances The substitutes for Wythenshawe Vets in a six-two triumph against Collegiate Old Boys on October 19th (from left to right) - one player, Papiss Cisse, Marcel Edwards, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey How can you enhance a excellent veteran side who have won consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double with 30 victories from thirty-two matches? Recruit a collection of former professionals who have played at the highest level of club football and international soccer as you aim for additional honors. A Manchester team has an amateur vets squad with nine former Premier League footballers in their present roster. Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps The team Vets Over 35s are based in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans Division Premier Tier. The roster this season features nine former Premier League players, with a total 1,801 Premier League games. The elite roster also includes over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 international appearances. The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 goals in over 100 appearances for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from German league side SC Freiburg in January 2012. Cisse made his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match versus defending title holders their rivals and scored all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a half-hour first-half hat-trick. The team for this season also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater. Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have won fifteen big honors and moved for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million. Famous Figures and Global Players Stephen Ireland earned six Irish caps, netting four scores Stephen Ireland started turning out for the side during pre-season this summer through good friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side match, to join in. Former Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now attends their home games, also made his first appearance against the opposition - who are based in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their strip. He played for the club between 2016 and 2020 "A friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse. "After that he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me! "When you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do? "The people who come and watch are happy and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course." Such is the strength in depth at the club, he made his first game at full-back. "It's a bit different but then, I love running and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added. "I warn my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking. "That running is what I'm after. It's good fun." Former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa is turning out for the team Unreal Experience In addition to the forward's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit 5 on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker. The team are top of the Premier Division with 3 victories from three and a GD of plus nineteen. Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was. He has appeared at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as playing in over two hundred top-flight matches. "It was spreading like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," said the player. "I felt I was a little starstruck playing against him to be honest. "Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's got over 60 English appearances. "We competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough. "Our group literally have not ceased talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the journey home. "The opponents 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 second match." We Will Still Take the League' Andy Kirby coaches the opposition vets team, who secured the Top Tier title the previous campaign, together with his co-manager. "We went one-nil up and had a