🔗 Share this article Discover the Weekend Division Team Featuring Over 1,800 English Top Division Matches The substitutes for the team Vets in a six-two triumph versus Collegiate Old Boys on 19 October (from left to right) - Oumar Niasse, another, Marcel Edwards, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey How do you enhance a outstanding experienced side that have won back-to-back titles, including a double triumph with thirty wins from 32 matches? Recruit a raft of ex- professionals who have competed at the top tier of club football and global soccer as you target further trophies. A Manchester side fields an non-professional vets squad with nine ex- Premier League footballers in their current roster. 222 Premier League Goals, 325 International Caps The team Vets Over-35s are situated in south the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets League Premier Division. Their lineup this season features nine ex- top-flight players, with a total 1,801 top-flight matches. This elite roster also includes 222 top division scores and over 320 global appearances. They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven goals in 117 games for Newcastle United after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012. He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home-field match against reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a half-hour first-half hat-trick. Wythenshawe's team for this campaign also features ex- pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater. Collectively, the former Premier League players have won 15 significant trophies and transferred for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million. Household Names and International Players Stephen Ireland won six Irish appearances, netting four scores Stephen Ireland started playing for the team during preseason this summer through close friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a midweek small-sided game, to participate. Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who netted 12 goals in 65 top-flight matches for the Toffees and still attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform. He featured for the club from 2016 and 2020 "My mate Stephen Ireland told me 'come and play, it's good fun'," said Niasse. "Then he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I saw them wearing Everton kits - I say this is wrong for me! "If you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose? "The fans who come and watch are happy and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with structure of course." Such is the bench strength at Wythenshawe, he had his debut at full-back. "That's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added. "I warn my defender 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to continue attacking. "That movement is what I'm after. It's good fun." Ex- Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa is playing for Wythenshawe Unreal Feeling In addition to the forward's six goals on debut, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd scored 5 on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, notched a hat-trick in one match as a striker. The team are top of the Top Tier with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen. One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Emile Heskey was. Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than two hundred Premier League games. "The news was going round like wildfire they had all these former top-flight players," remarked the player. "I think I was a little awestruck facing Figueroa to be honest. "Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he's has 60-odd English caps. "Our side competed well for a good 20 minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was tough. "Our group literally haven't ceased talking about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home. "They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of normal fellas. "Now we are eager for the second match." We Will Still Take the Title' The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager. "We scored 1-0 up and had a