Discover the Weekend Division Team Boasting 1,800 Top-Flight Matches

Wythenshawe Vets bench during a match
The substitutes for the team Vets during a six-two triumph versus their opponents on 19 October (from left to right) - Oumar Niasse, another, Marcel Edwards, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey

What can you improve a stellar experienced side that have claimed consecutive championships, including a double triumph boasting thirty victories from thirty-two matches?

Bring in a group of former professionals that have played at the elite tier of club football and global soccer as you target more honors.

A Greater Manchester side boasts an non-professional vets team with nine former top-flight players in their active roster.

222 Top Division Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five International Caps

The team Vets Over-35s are located in southern the city and play in the Cheshire-based Vets Division Top Division.

The lineup this season includes 9 former Premier League players, with a combined 1,801 elite appearances.

The elite roster also boasts over 220 Premier League goals and over 320 international caps.

The squad include one forward, who scored thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for his former club after signing for them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in January 2012.

Cisse made his debut for the team in their most recent home-field match against reigning champions their rivals and scored every one of the six scores in a 6-2 victory - including a 32-minute first-half triple.

Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign 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 defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the ex- top-flight players have claimed 15 significant trophies and transferred for total transfer sums of around £123 million.

Household Names and International Players

Stephen Ireland in action
He won 6 Irish caps, scoring four goals

Stephen Ireland began turning out for the side in preseason this season through close friend and present Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate.

Ex- Senegalese forward Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 top-flight games for the Toffees and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and wear an Blue training kit as their strip.

Oumar Niasse playing for Everton
He featured for the club between 2016 and 2020

"My mate Stephen said 'come and play, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.

"Then he informed me we were playing a side from Liverpool and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is wrong for me!

"When you still enjoy the game and you feel you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to choose?

"Those fans who come and see are pleased and to make someone's moment if they see us competing there and to pose us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us having a place we can play, with organisation of course."

So great is the squad depth at the club, he made his first game at defender.

"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy sprinting and just move forward - 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 running is what I'm after. It's enjoyable."

Maynor Figueroa in action
Former Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa is turning out for the team

Unreal Experience

Along with Cisse's 6 goals on debut, Ireland has netted eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by position, scored a triple in one game up front.

Wythenshawe are top of the Top Division with 3 victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, 38, who features on the flank for the opposition, came up against ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on Sunday - and had to tell his young son who Heskey was.

He has appeared at 2 World Cups for Honduras, in as well as playing in more than two hundred top-flight matches.

"The news was spreading like a rumor they had all these ex-Premier League players," said the player.

"I think I was a little awestruck playing against him to be honest.

"Also Emile [Heskey] came on and he's has over 60 England caps.

"We held our own for a good twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was tough.

"We really have not stopped chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and sibling on the journey home.

"The opponents were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.

"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."

We Will Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the opposition vets team, who won the Top Tier championship the previous campaign, along with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 up and had a

Wesley Lutz
Wesley Lutz

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