🔗 Share this article

How can you improve a excellent experienced side who have claimed back-to-back titles, including a league-cup double boasting thirty wins from thirty-two games?

Bring in a group of former professionals that have played at the top tier of club football and international football as you aim for more honors.

One Manchester side boasts an non-professional vets team with nine former top-flight footballers in their current roster.

222 Premier League Goals, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps

Wythenshawe Veterans Over-35s are based in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Tier.

The squad list this campaign includes nine former Premier League footballers, with a total nearly 1,800 Premier League matches.

The elite squad also boasts over 220 top division goals and over 320 international caps.

They feature one forward, who notched thirty-seven goals in 117 appearances for his former club after moving to them for nine million pounds from German league club Freiburg in January 2012.

He made his debut for Wythenshawe in their most recent home-field game versus reigning title holders Collegiate Old Boys and netted all six scores in a six-two win - featuring a 32-minute first-half hat-trick.

The roster for this season also includes ex- professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull and Burnley winger George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic defender Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship winners Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Collectively, the ex- Premier League footballers have won fifteen major trophies and moved for combined transfer fees of approximately £123 million.

Household Figures and International Stars

Stephen Ireland started turning out for the team during pre-season this season through good friend and current Wythenshawe teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then invited additional ex-pros, who all compete in a weekly nine-a-side game, to participate.

Former Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted 12 scores in 65 Premier League matches for Everton and even now goes to their matches at Goodison Park, also made his debut versus Collegiate OB - who are based in Liverpool and use an Everton training kit as their uniform.

"My friend Stephen Ireland told me 'come and have a game, it's good fun'," commented Niasse.

"After that he told me we were facing a side from the city and the shock I had when I saw them sporting Everton kits - I say this is strange for me!

"If you still enjoy football and you know you can still do it, wherever you can play, what are you going to choose?

"The spectators who turn up and watch are pleased and to make a moment if they watch us playing there and to pose us queries - it's really about the pleasure of us having somewhere we can play, with structure of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, he had his first game at defender.

"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy running and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he added.

"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.

"The movement is what I'm after. It's good fun."

Unreal Scenario

Along with Cisse's 6 scores on debut, Ireland has netted 8 in three appearances for the side, while George Boyd scored five on his first match and Lescott, a centre-half by trade, notched a hat-trick in one game as a striker.

The team are leading of the Top Tier with three wins from 3 and a GD of +19.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who plays on the wing for the opposition, faced ex- Latics defender Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.

Figueroa has played at two global tournaments for Honduras, in as well as featuring in over two hundred top-flight games.

"It was spreading like a rumor they had all these former top-flight stars," said Barrow.

"I felt I was a bit starstruck playing against him to be honest.

"Even Heskey came on and he's has 60-odd English appearances.

"We competed well for a solid twenty mins but then we had a player dismissed and it was tough.

"Our group really have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and brother on the journey home.

"They were all really nice, 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 Win the League'

The manager manages the opposition veterans team, who won the Top Tier title last season, along with Paul Maguire.

"We went 1-0 up and had a