🔗 Share this article Meet this Weekend League Club Boasting 1,800 Top-Flight Games This substitutes for the team Vets in a six-two victory against their opponents on October 19th (left to right) - Oumar Niasse, Papiss Cisse, a teammate, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey What do you boost a excellent veteran side that have secured back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double with thirty wins from 32 matches? Sign a raft of former pro players who have played at the highest level of club football and global soccer as you aim for more trophies. A Manchester team fields an non-professional vets team with nine former top-flight footballers in their current lineup. Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 Global Appearances Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are located in southern Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans League Top Tier. Their squad list this campaign boasts 9 ex- Premier League players, with a combined 1,801 elite games. The high-profile team also boasts over 220 top division goals and over 320 international caps. They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 scores in over 100 games for Newcastle United after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga club Freiburg in 2012. Cisse had his debut for the team in their last home-field match against defending champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a 32-minute opening period hat-trick. Wythenshawe's squad for this campaign also features former pros such as English and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC winger George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater. Together, the former top-flight footballers have won fifteen big honors and transferred for total transfer sums of about £123 million. Well-Known Names and International Players He won six Republic of Ireland appearances, netting four scores Ireland started turning out for the side during pre-season this season through good mate and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland player then invited additional former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to participate. Former Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who scored twelve scores in 65 Premier League matches for the Toffees and even now goes to their home games, also made his first appearance versus the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and use an Blue training kit as their uniform. He played for the club from 2016 and 2020 "My mate Stephen told me 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," said Niasse. "After that he told me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Blue shirts - I say this is wrong for me! "If you still enjoy football and you feel you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose? "The fans who turn up and watch are happy and to make someone's day if they watch us competing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course." So great is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, he had his first game at full-back. "That's a little unusual but then, I love running and just move forward - I'm not staying back that much," he added. "I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking. "The movement is what I'm seeking. It's good fun." Ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa is playing for Wythenshawe 'Surreal Feeling In addition to the forward's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a triple in one match as a striker. The team are top of the Premier Tier with three victories from 3 and a GD of +19. Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced ex- Wigan defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was. He has appeared at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in addition to featuring in over two hundred top-flight games. "It was spreading like wildfire they had these former top-flight players," remarked the player. "I felt I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest. "Also Heskey got on and he's has 60-odd England appearances. "Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a player sent off and it was hard. "We really have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the way home. "They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the game - it was like playing a bunch of regular fellas. "Now we are eager for the return fixture." 'We'll Still Win the Title' The manager coaches the opposition vets team, who won the Premier Division championship the previous campaign, along with Paul Maguire. "We went one-nil up and had a