🔗 Share this article Discover the Sunday League Club Boasting Over 1,800 Premier League Games The bench for the team Veterans in a 6-2 triumph against their opponents on 19 October (left to right) - Oumar Niasse, another, Marcel Edwards, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey What can you improve a stellar veteran side who have won consecutive championships, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from 32 matches? Bring in a raft of ex- pro players that have played at the elite level of club and global soccer as you pursue additional honors. A Greater Manchester side fields an non-professional veterans squad with nine ex- Premier League players in their present squad. Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps The team Veterans Over-35s are located in south Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Veterans League Premier Tier. The roster this season includes 9 ex- Premier League footballers, with a collective 1,801 Premier League appearances. The high-profile squad also includes over 220 top division scores and 325 international appearances. The squad include Papiss Cisse, who notched 37 goals in over 100 appearances for his former club after moving to them for £9m from German league club SC Freiburg in 2012. He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home-field game versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - including a half-hour opening period hat-trick. Wythenshawe's roster for this season also features former professionals such as England and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees forward Oumar Niasse, Wigan 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 major honors and transferred for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million. Well-Known Figures and Global Stars He won 6 Irish appearances, netting four goals Ireland began playing for the team during pre-season this season through close friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly nine-a-side match, to participate. Former Senegalese striker Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five top-flight matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform. He featured for the club from 2016 and 2020 "My mate Stephen told me 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," commented the striker. "Then he told me we were facing a side from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Blue kits - I say this is strange for me! "If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to do? "Those fans who come and watch are pleased and to give a moment if they see us playing there and to pose us questions - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can play, with structure of course." Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at full-back. "It's a bit different but then, I love running and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said. "I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to keep attacking. "The movement is what I'm after. It's enjoyable." Ex- Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa is playing for the team Unreal Feeling In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, notched a triple in one game up front. The team are leading of the Top Division with 3 wins from three and a GD of plus nineteen. Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the wing for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old son who Heskey was. He has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in addition to playing in over two hundred Premier League matches. "The news was spreading like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said Barrow. "I felt I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest. "Also Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd England caps. "Our side competed well for a solid twenty minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was tough. "We literally haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the way home. "The opponents were all dead sound, 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 Win the League' The manager coaches the Collegiate vets side, who won the Premier Division championship last season, along with Paul Maguire. "Our team scored 1-0 up and had a