🔗 Share this article Meet this Sunday League Squad Boasting 1,800 Premier League Matches The substitutes for the team Vets during a 6-2 victory versus their opponents on 19 October (from left to right) - one player, another, a teammate, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey How do you enhance a excellent veteran squad that have won consecutive championships, including a league-cup double boasting 30 wins from thirty-two games? Recruit a raft of ex- pro players that have performed at the elite level of club football and international football as you target additional honors. One Manchester club has an non-professional vets team with nine former top-flight footballers in their active lineup. 222 Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Appearances Wythenshawe Vets Over 35s are based in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets League Top Tier. The roster this campaign includes nine former top-flight footballers, with a combined 1,801 Premier League games. This star-studded roster also contains over 220 top division goals and 325 international appearances. The squad feature Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven goals in over 100 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club Freiburg in 2012. He made his debut for the team in their most recent home match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six goals in a 6-2 win - featuring a half-hour opening period triple. The squad for this campaign also features former professionals such as English and Liverpool forward 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 victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater. Collectively, the former top-flight footballers have secured fifteen major trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of about £123 million. Household Figures and International Players He won six Irish appearances, scoring four scores Stephen Ireland began turning out for the team in preseason this season through good friend and current team player Blake Norton, and the former Irish player then asked other ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to participate. Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and still goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance versus the opposition - who are located in the city and wear an Everton warm-up gear as their strip. He played for the club between 2016 and 2020 "A mate Stephen Ireland said 'come and play, it's good fun'," said the striker. "After that he told me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Everton shirts - I thought this is wrong for me! "When you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose? "Those fans who turn up and watch are happy and to give someone's day if they watch us competing there and to pose us queries - it's more like the joy of us having a place we can enjoy football, with organisation of course." Such is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender. "It's a little different but then, I love sprinting and just go forward - I'm not staying back that much," he said. "I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue running. "That movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun." Former Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa is playing for the team Dreamlike' Scenario In addition to the forward's six scores on debut, Ireland has scored eight in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one match up front. Wythenshawe are top of the Top Tier with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of +19. Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the wing for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Emile Heskey was. He has played at 2 global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight games. "The news was going round like a rumor they had these ex-Premier League stars," remarked the player. "I felt I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest. "Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's got over 60 English caps. "Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man dismissed and it was hard. "We really have not ceased chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home. "The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a group of normal fellas. "Now we are eager for the second match." 'We'll Still Take the Title' Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Top Division title the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire. "We scored 1-0 ahead and had a