🔗 Share this article Discover this Weekend Division Team Featuring Over 1,800 Top-Flight Appearances The bench for the team Veterans during a 6-2 triumph versus their opponents on 19 October (from left to right) - one player, another, Marcel Edwards, Blake Norton, Maynor Figueroa, Dean Warburton and Emile Heskey What do you enhance a outstanding veteran squad who have claimed consecutive titles, featuring a league-cup double with thirty victories from thirty-two matches? Sign a raft of ex- professionals that have performed at the elite tier of club football and international soccer as you aim for additional honors. A Manchester side fields an non-professional veterans team with 9 former top-flight players in their present lineup. Two Hundred Twenty-Two Top Division Scores, 325 Global Caps Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire-based Veterans League Premier Tier. The lineup this campaign features nine ex- Premier League players, with a collective 1,801 elite games. This elite team also contains 222 top division goals and 325 global appearances. They feature Papiss Cisse, who scored thirty-seven scores in 117 appearances for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from German league side Freiburg in January 2012. Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home match against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a six-two victory - featuring a 32-minute first-half triple. Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also includes ex- professionals such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater. Collectively, the ex- top-flight players have claimed fifteen big honors and moved for combined transfer sums of around £123 million. Household Figures and International Players He earned six Irish caps, scoring four goals Ireland began playing for the side during pre-season this summer through good mate and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a weekly small-sided match, to participate. Ex- Senegal forward Oumar Niasse, who scored 12 goals in 65 Premier League games for Everton and still goes to their home games, also made his first appearance versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and wear an Everton training kit as their uniform. Oumar Niasse featured for Everton from 2016 and 2020 "A friend Stephen Ireland said 'join and have a game, it's good fun'," commented Niasse. "Then he told me we were playing a team from the city and the shock I had when I noticed them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me! "When you still enjoy football and you know you can still play, anywhere you can play, what are you going to do? "Those people who turn up and see are pleased and to make a day if they watch us playing there and to ask us questions - 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, he made his debut at defender. "It's a little different but then, I love sprinting 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. "That movement is what I'm looking for. It's good fun." Former Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa is turning out for the team 'Surreal Feeling In addition to Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd scored five on his debut appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a triple in one game as a striker. Wythenshawe are leading of the Top Tier with three victories from three and a goal difference of plus nineteen. One opponent, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young son who Heskey was. Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for his country, in addition to featuring in more than two hundred top-flight games. "It was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," remarked Barrow. "I think I was a little awestruck facing him to be honest. "Also Heskey got on and he's has over 60 England caps. "Our side held our own for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough. "We literally haven't ceased chatting about it - I was phoning my mum and brother on the journey home. "The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of regular guys. "Now we are eager for the return fixture." We Will Still Take the Title' Andy Kirby coaches the Collegiate veterans side, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with Paul Maguire. "We scored one-nil up and had a