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How do you improve a stellar veteran team who have won back-to-back titles, including a league-cup double featuring 30 wins from 32 games?
Recruit a raft of former professionals who have played at the highest level of club and international football as you target more silverware.
Manchester club Wythenshawe AFC have an amateur vets team with nine former Premier League players in their current squad.
222 Premier League goals, 325 international caps
Wythenshawe Vets Over-35s are based in south Manchester and play in the Cheshire Vets League Premier Division.
Their squad list this season boasts nine former Premier League players, with a combined 1,801 top-flight appearances.
The elite roster also contains 222 Premier League goals and 325 international caps.
They include Papiss Cisse, who scored 37 goals in 117 appearances for Newcastle United after joining for £9m from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012.
Cisse made his debut for Wythenshawe in their last home game against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six goals in a 6-2 win – including a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.
Wythenshawe’s squad for this season also includes former pros such as England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and Premier League title winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Household names and international stars
Ireland began playing for the team during pre-season this summer through close friend and current Wythenshawe player Blake Norton, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other ex-pros, who all play in a midweek nine-a-side game, to join in.
“My friend Stephen Ireland said ‘come and play, it’s good fun’,” said Niasse.
“Then he told me we were playing a team from Liverpool and the shock I had when I saw them wearing Everton shirts – I say this is wrong for me!
“When you still love football and you know you can still do it, anywhere you can play football, what are you going to do?
“The people who come and watch are happy and to make someone’s day if they see us playing there and to ask us questions – it’s more like the joy of us having somewhere we can play, with organisation of course.”
Such is the squad depth at Wythenshawe, Niasse made his debut at full-back.
“It’s a bit different but then, I love running and just go inside – I’m not defending that much,” he said.
“I tell my centre-back ‘I’m not staying’ and that I’m just going to keep running.
‘Surreal experience’
Along with Cisse’s six goals on debut, Ireland has scored eight in three appearances for Wythenshawe, while Boyd hit five on his first appearance and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, scored a hat-trick in one game up front.
Wythenshawe are top of the Premier Division with three wins from three and a goal difference of +19.
Paul Barrow, 38, who plays on the wing for Collegiate OB, faced former Wigan full-back Figueroa on Sunday – and had to explain to his nine-year-old son who Heskey was.
Figueroa has played at two World Cups for Honduras, in addition to playing in more than 200 Premier League games.
“It was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players,” said Barrow.
“I think I was a bit starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.
“Even Emile [Heskey] got on and he’s got 60-odd England caps.
“We held our own for a good 20 minutes but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
“We literally haven’t stopped talking about it – I was phoning my mum and brother on the way home.
“They were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game – it was like playing a bunch of normal fellas.
‘We’ll still win the league’
Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate vets side, who won the Premier Division title last season, along with Paul Maguire.
“We went 1-0 up and had a chance to make it 2-0, but once we had a player sent off we were up against it and four quick goals killed the game for us,” said Kirby.
“From where we’ve been in local amateur football, to winning the league, getting into a County Cup final – this is phenomenal for our lads.
Players who were worth millions paying match subs
Carl Barratt is chairman of Wythenshawe AFC and joined the club 24 years ago when his son started playing for a junior team.
It has since developed from five teams into an operation of 70, including two successful men’s and women’s senior sides who play in the North West Counties and National League respectively.
“We had 178 people here watching on Sunday – and that’s only going to grow,” said Barratt.
“The vets team has always been successful and had a very good season last year.
“The funniest part of it all is that these players have been worth millions and my wife has been sending them letters to set up their subscriptions for their subs.
“She comes to me and says ‘we’ve signed someone called Emile Heskey’ and then we’re asking him for £15 a week.
Barratt has overseen significant development at the club and believes the involvement of the former Premier League players will have a positive impact on the area.
“Wythenshawe is a small community of 110,000 people,” he added.
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