🔗 Share this article Discover the Sunday League Club With Nearly Two Thousand Top-Flight Appearances The bench for the team Vets during a six-two victory versus their opponents on 19 October (left to right) - one player, another, a teammate, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey What can you boost a excellent experienced team that have won consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double with thirty victories from 32 games? Sign a raft of former pro players who have competed at the elite tier of club and global soccer as you target more silverware. A Manchester team has an amateur vets squad with 9 ex- top-flight footballers in their active squad. Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 International Appearances Wythenshawe Veterans Over 35s are situated in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Veterans Division Premier Division. The squad list this season boasts nine ex- top-flight players, with a collective over 1,800 top-flight games. The star-studded roster also contains over 220 top division goals and over 320 global appearances. The squad include Papiss Cisse, who netted 37 goals in 117 games for his former club after signing for them for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in 2012. He had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and netted every one of the six scores in a six-two victory - including a 32-minute opening period hat-trick. The squad for this season also includes ex- pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley FC midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater. Together, the ex- top-flight players have secured fifteen significant trophies and moved for combined transfer sums of around £123 million. Famous Figures and International Players Stephen Ireland earned 6 Republic of Ireland appearances, netting 4 scores Ireland started playing for the team during pre-season this season through close friend and present Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish midfielder then asked other former professionals, who all compete in a weekly small-sided game, to join in. Ex- Senegalese forward Niasse, who netted twelve goals in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut versus the opposition - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform. Oumar Niasse featured for Everton from 2016 and 2020 "A mate Stephen Ireland told me 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," commented Niasse. "After that he informed me we were playing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them wearing Blue shirts - I thought this is strange for me! "When you still love football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can kick a ball, what are you going to choose? "The spectators who turn up and see are pleased and to give someone's moment if they watch us playing there and to ask us queries - it's more like the joy of us getting somewhere we can enjoy football, with organisation of course." Such is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his first game at full-back. "That's a bit unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move inside - I'm not staying back that much," he added. "I tell my defender 'I'm not staying' and that I'm just going to continue running. "The movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun." Former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa is playing for the team 'Surreal Scenario In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Stephen Ireland has scored eight in three games for the side, while Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a triple in one match up front. The team are top of the Top Tier with three wins from 3 and a GD of +19. One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against former Latics defender Figueroa on Sunday - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was. Figueroa has played at 2 World Cups for his country, in as well as playing in over two hundred Premier League games. "It was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League stars," said the player. "I think I was a little starstruck facing him to be honest. "Also Heskey came on and he's has over 60 English caps. "Our side held our own for a solid 20 mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard. "Our group literally have not ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mother and sibling on the journey home. "They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a bunch of regular fellas. "Now we are eager for the second match." We Will Still Take the League' The manager coaches the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Tier championship last season, together with Paul Maguire. "Our team scored one-nil up and had a